ICC launches investigation into new alleged war crimes in Sudan's Darfur

By Betul Yuruk

UNITED NATIONS (AA) - The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said Thursday that he has launched an investigation into new alleged war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.

In his briefing to the UN Security Council, Karim Khan said the violence between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has spilled into Darfur, where atrocities amounting to war crimes had been committed in 2003.

The country is ''in peril of allowing history to repeat itself,'' Khan said.

The African nation has been engulfed by violence again two decades after a conflict broke out.

Over 3,000 people have been killed and more than 3 million have had to flee their homes since the conflict began on April 15.

Disagreement had been fomenting in recent months between the two sides about the integration of the RSF into the armed forces -- a key condition of Sudan's transition agreement with political groups.

Sudan has been without a functioning government since the fall of 2021, when the military dismissed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's transitional government and declared a state of emergency in a move decried by political forces as a "coup."

The transitional period, which started in August 2019 after the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir, had been scheduled to end with elections in early 2024.