Sudan files genocide case against UAE at ICJ

Published: March 6, 2025

A protestor chants during a rally against “UAE interference in Sudan’s internal affairs” in front of the Embassy of United Arab Emirates in Washington DC, United States on February 18, 2024. [Mostafa Bassim – Anadolu Agency]

Sudan has filed a case against the United Arab Emirates at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), asking it to impose emergency measures and to order the Emirates to prevent genocidal acts in West Darfur, the court said today.

In response, the UAE will seek the immediate dismissal of a case brought against it, an Emirati official said in a statement sent to Reuters, adding that the allegations “lack any legal or factual basis.”

The official, who was speaking on behalf of the UAE government but declined to be named, was speaking in reference to a case alleging the UAE violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention in relation to attacks against the Masalit ethnic group in West Darfur by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias.

Sudan has accused the UAE of arming the rival Sudanese paramilitary group, the RSF, who it accuses of carrying out “gruesome violations, including killings, torture and even the rape of women by militias, with some of these crimes documented by the perpetrators themselves.”

Testimony of witnesses who escaped ethnic violence in Sudan’s Darfur region in the summer of 2023 recount disturbing scenes of children being “piled up and shot” by the RSF as they tried to flee from El Geneina, the regional capital. This violence was part of an ethnic cleansing campaign targeting Sudan’s non-Arab Masalit tribe, with thousands of civilians losing their lives, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported.

Genocide Watch Comment: Genocide Watch rejects the term "ethnic cleansing" which is a euphemism invented by Slobodan Milošević to deny genocide. Ethnic cleansing is not prohibited by any treaty or other international law. What is underway is genocide.

The Sudanese armed forces have been locked in an almost two-year civil war with the RSF that has devastated the country and sparked bouts of ethnic killings.

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