International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said Sudan had pledged “full cooperation” in investigating war crimes committed in the Darfur region during the rule of ousted President Omar al-Bashir.
Khan’s comments came after he met with the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and after he visited camps in Darfur where, according to the United Nations, during the conflict that broke out in 2003 year, 300,000 people were killed.
In a statement to reporters, Khan, who has been visiting Sudan since Saturday, said “the words I have heard from the Chairman of the Sovereign Council are very positive” and “the challenge now is to make it happen.”
Al-Bashir, 78, has been held in Khartoum since his exile in 2019 and has been wanted by the International Criminal Court for over a decade on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The court is also prosecuting two of his former aides for involvement in war crimes.
At the end of his visit, Khan said that Al-Burhan promised “full cooperation” and a commitment to “bring justice to the people of Darfur”.
Khan stressed the need for “independent” and “credible” investigations.
The conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003 when members of ethnic minorities took up arms against the Khartoum regime in protest against systematic discrimination.
Khartoum responded to the uprising by deploying government forces and Janjaweed militias, made up of Arab tribes accused of atrocities in the region.
For a long time, human rights organizations accused Bashir and his former associates of pursuing a policy of scorched earth, as well as rape, murder, looting and burning villages.
And on Tuesday, Khan said Sudanese were “tired of promises and a thirst for justice,” expressing in a video interview during a meeting of the UN Security Council that he regrets the lack of accountability for the crimes committed.
Khan pointed to a decline in cooperation between the Khartoum authorities and the International Criminal Court in recent months.
Khan met with the Vice President of the Sovereign Council of Sudan, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemeti”.
In 2020, the Sudanese authorities signed a peace agreement with a number of rebel armed movements, some of which are in Darfur, which was supposed to end the conflict in remote areas.
Since then, a number of leaders of the former rebel movements have taken high public office.
In April, the trial of the accused Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel Rahman, known in April 2022 as Ali Kushayb, began. This is the first trial before the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur.
