Invited, on Thursday 12 October, by the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights to address MEPs of the Committees on Foreign Affairs and on Development, Sudanese lawyer Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman, winner of the 2007 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, made a passionate appeal to the EU to take action to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of the atrocities committed in Darfur and throughout Sudan as crimes have intensified in the 180 days of conflict (see EUROPE 13231/6).
In particular, he denounced the “ethnic cleansing of indigenous groups in Darfur, carried out by Janjawid militias affiliated to local Arabs and other Arab tribes from Chad, Niger, Mali and even Mauritania” for the purpose of land grabbing, and deplored the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators.
This human rights defender also protested against “the sale of women on the market as products” to be used in sexual slavery. “Victims ask me what the EU is doing”, said Mr Osman, calling on the Union to bring the conflict in Sudan to the forefront, as it does for other conflicts.
Regretting that none of the regional initiatives to end the conflict between the regular Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces had been successful so far, the representative of the European External Action Service announced that the EU was going to sign a €10 million agreement with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Sudan to help the experts and the fact-finding commission set up the previous day in Geneva.
He also said that the autonomous framework of European sanctions to freeze the assets of Sudanese perpetrators of atrocities had “finally been published” on Wednesday (https://aeur.eu/f/91b ), and that discussions on the list of people concerned were under way.
“The conflict must be resolved through an inclusive solution: all Sudanese politicians must be included”, he added. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)