International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said Monday that atrocities committed by the paramilitary forces fighting Sudanese army troops in Sudans Darfur region may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. US officials said they were working with both sides to broker a humanitarian truce.
International Criminal Courtprosecutors said they are trying to preserve evidence from a rampage last week through a besieged city inDarfurby the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group fighting Sudanese army troops.
The alleged atrocities in famine-hit el-Fasher are part of a broader pattern of violence that has afflicted the entire Darfur region and may constitutewar crimesandcrimes against humanity, theICCstatement said, noting the evidence could be used in future prosecutions.
Read moreSurvivors of Sudan's El-Fasher say RSF is separating families and killing children
The RSF captured el-Fasher last week after besieging it for 18 months. Witnesses have reported RSF fighters going house to house, killing civilians, committing sexual assault andkilling childrenin front of their parents.
According to the World Health Organization, gunmen killed at least 460 people at a hospital and abducted doctors and nurses.
Details have been slow to emerge as communications are poor and the total death toll remains unclear.
The fall of el-Fasher heralds a new phase of the brutal two-year war in Africas third-largest country. The ICCs chief prosecutor told the UN Security Council in January there were grounds to believe both sides may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity orgenocidein Darfur.
Read moreSudan: What photos and videos can tell us about the El-Fasher massacres
The US adviser for African affairs, Massad Boulos, told the AP in an interview on Monday that the US is working with the Sudanese army and RSF to bring about a humanitariantruceand could have an announcement soon.
We were working on this for the last almost 10 days with both sides, hoping to finalise the details," Boulos said. The US-led plan would start with a three-month truce followed by a nine-month political process, he said.
The US has been working for months withSaudi Arabia,Egyptand theUnited Arab Emirates, known as the Quad, on ways to end the war.
The atrocities that weve seen, of course, are totally unacceptable, Boulos said of videos showing RSF and allied gunmen committing atrocities against civilians including beatings, killings and sexual assault.
FRANCE 24 has not been able to independently verify the videos.
Earlier this month, the ICC for the first time convicted a suspect of crimes in Darfur in 2003-2004 after looking into atrocities in the region for more than two decades.Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, was found guilty of ordering mass executions and bludgeoning two prisoners to death with an ax.
Originally published on France24
