In June 2023, Ibrahim Shomo and some friends fled war-torn West Darfur state in Sudan, members of the “non-Arab” Masalit tribe knowing they would be killed if they stayed any longer.

They feared the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied militias from the “Arab tribes” – mainly nomadic and pastoralist communities in Darfur. Sedentary agricultural tribes are referred to as “non-Arabs.”

The RSF and its allies were targeting Masalit civilians in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, in an ethnic killing that began days after the outbreak of war between the RSF and the Sudanese army on April 15, 2023.

A UN panel of experts found in January 2024 that the RSF and allied militias killed up to 15,000 people in El Geneina.

Nearly a year later, the United States agreed with UN experts Secretary of State Antony Blinken Announcement on Tuesday The Rapid Support Forces and their allies committed genocide by attacking civilians and systematically killing men and boys because of their ethnicity.

A blow to legitimacy

This decision led to the imposition of US sanctions on several shell companies affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces in the United Arab Emirates, and against the group’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

Masalit survivors and analysts believe that designation and sanctions could isolate the RSF and permanently tarnish its image.

“The lasting impact of this designation…is that it significantly damages the possibility of Hemedti assuming a role in a future government and, certainly, being in charge of a future government,” said Jonas Horner, an expert on Sudan and politics. Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank in Europe.

The US classification came two weeks before the end of President Joe Biden’s administration’s term, prompting experts to accuse his administration of assuaging its guilty conscience with this step.

They told Al Jazeera that more pressure should have been brought sooner, as a basis for a more coherent US policy on Sudan, but that the early genocide designation may have exacerbated public pressure on Biden to hold an election. A similar ruling about Israel’s war in Gaza.

“The Biden administration has a serious problem because we know there are similar calls to designate Israel as having committed genocide in Gaza,” said Suleiman Baldo, founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Center, a think tank that tracks the war.

“But there is no road on earth [Washington would impose] He told Al Jazeera, “The same consequences for Israel that the Rapid Support Forces struck with.”

Despite the apparent double standard, Shomo said the U.S. designation provides a brief sense of joy for RSF victims.

“since [the designation was announced]“I can tell you that the Masalit are very happy,” he told Al Jazeera.

Reputation washing

In 2003, the Sudanese army relied on Arab tribal militias to crush a rebellion in Darfur carried out mainly by non-Arab groups angered by the political and economic marginalization of their people.

The Arab tribal militias called themselves the Popular Defense Forces, but became known as the Janjaweed (“devils on horseback”) because of the countless atrocities they committed — which likely amounted to ethnic cleansing and genocide, according to human rights groups. .

In 2013, then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir regrouped the Popular Defense Forces militias into the Rapid Support Forces and tasked them with fighting rebellions and protecting his regime from coups.

Under Hemedti’s leadership, the RSF began to aspire to global legitimacy by declaring itself Cooperation with the European Union The (European Union) agreement to eliminate illegal immigration, known as the “Khartoum Process”.

Then, after the popular uprising that ousted Bashir in April 2019, the RSF hired human rights consultants and public relations firms to help it recast itself as a benevolent force.

Ibrahim Al-Darab, advisor to the late governor of West Darfur, Abkar, said, “There was an attempt by the Rapid Support Forces to provide services to civilians such as transportation and securing gasoline for people so that they could operate basic services.”

“In my opinion, all these efforts were nonsense… They were trying to buy people and the street.”

In October 2021, the army and the RSF carried out a coup before turning on each other 18 months later in a bid to take control.

Human rights groups and UN experts accuse both sides of committing serious crimes such as summary killings and using famine as a weapon of war.

The RSF committed additional atrocities such as systematic mass rape of women and girls and carrying out what the United States now considers genocide against the Masalit.

Horner of the European Council on Foreign Relations said that Washington’s designation harms the RSF’s chances of obtaining global legitimacy from Western powers.

“My goodness [and RSF] “It is now stained with this label and will be difficult to wash,” he said.

A step towards justice?

The Rapid Support Forces denounced the US State Department’s genocide decision and its decision to impose sanctions on Hemedti’s front companies and the Rapid Support Forces.

Reporters Without Borders advisor Ali Mesbel told Al Jazeera that the American move was “unfair.”

“There was no legal committee – or any decision taken by a court or international committee – that made this decision,” he told Al Jazeera. He added: “This decision was based on inaccurate information and reports about us.”

But the genocide designation comes in the wake of countless reports of atrocities committed in West Darfur by the United Nations, aid groups, local observers and human rights groups. Al Jazeera’s reporting is extensive.

Shomo hopes that the US sanctions and designation will force the European Union to follow suit and prompt the International Criminal Court to issue new indictments, including against Hemedti.

In July 2023, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan told the UN Security Council that his office had launched a new investigation into atrocities committed in Darfur.

“What happened to the Masalit is really a tragedy,” Shomo said. “I feel good about the decision to impose sanctions… but I hope it will eventually lead to Hemedti being tried at the International Criminal Court.

“I lost 23 of my relatives to the Rapid Support Forces,” he told Al Jazeera.

One of them was his younger cousin Abdelazim, who was shot dead while trying to flee West Darfur with tens of thousands of other civilians seeking safety in Chad.

They were terrified of Assassination of the governor of West Darfur, Khamis AbkarWho accused the Rapid Support Forces of committing genocide in a television interview, in June 2023.

The Rapid Support Forces opened fire on those fleeing.

“We were looking for him [in Chad] “But I couldn’t find it,” Shomo said.