IV 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 1328 

Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias 

in the Darfur region of Sudan against non-Arab ethnic communities 

as acts of genocide. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 27, 2024 

Mr. JAMES (for himself and Mr. ALLRED) submitted the following resolution; 

which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and 

allied militias in the Darfur region of Sudan against 

non-Arab ethnic communities as acts of genocide. 

Whereas Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and 

Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (in this preamble 

referred to as the ‘‘Genocide Convention’’), adopted at 

Paris on December 9, 1948, defines genocide as ‘‘any of 

the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in 

whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious 

group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) 

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the 

group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions 

of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction 

in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to 


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prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring 

children of the group to another group’’; 

Whereas the genocide that began in 2003 in Darfur perpetrated by the Government of Sudan and its proxy 

Janjaweed militia, explicitly targeting the Fur, Zaghawa, 

and Masalit ethnic communities through mass killings, 

forced displacement, the razing of villages and cropland, 

widespread rape, aerial bombings of civilians, and the 

blocking of humanitarian assistance, killed at least 

200,000 civilians and displaced 2,000,000 people; 

Whereas, on July 22, 2004, Congress declared, with the passage of House Concurrent Resolution 467 (108th Congress) and Senate Concurrent Resolution 133 (108th 

Congress), that atrocities occurring in Darfur were genocide, and the administration of President George W. 

Bush declared genocide in Darfur on September 9, 2004; 

Whereas, in 2013, the Government of Sudan, under the administration of the National Intelligence and Security 

Service (NISS) and the command of the Sudanese Armed 

Forces (SAF), formed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), 

a formal paramilitary force composed primarily of 

Janjaweed militia; 

Whereas Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as 

‘‘Hemedti’’), a Janjaweed militia leader during the genocide in Darfur that began in 2003, served as head of the 

RSF and became the deputy head of the Transitional 

Military Council, which took power from the President of 

Sudan Omar al-Bashir in 2019, and the deputy chairman 

of the successor Sovereign Council; 

Whereas the elevation of individuals who served in leadership 

of the parties responsible for such genocide, including 


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Hemedti and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the 

SAF, into leadership roles in the transition government 

in 2019 only heightened the risk of atrocities recurring 

across Sudan, including genocide in Darfur; 

Whereas fighting between the SAF and the RSF broke out 

in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, and quickly spread to 

Darfur, where the RSF has taken control of four of five 

regional capitals in Darfur: Nyala, Geneina, Zalingei, and 

El Daein; 

Whereas, on August 16, 2023, CNN issued an investigative 

report on the June 15, 2023, atrocity in El Geneina, the 

capital of West Darfur, describing the atrocity as ‘‘one 

of the most violent incidents in the genocide-scarred Sudanese region’s history’’, explaining how ‘‘the powerful 

paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allied militias 

hunted down non-Arab people in various parts of the city 

. . . reviving a genocidal playbook’’, and in which survivors reported that identifying as Masalit ‘‘was a death 

sentence’’; 

Whereas, on November 3, 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated, ‘‘We 

are deeply alarmed by reports that women and girls are 

being abducted and held in inhuman, degrading slave-like 

conditions in areas controlled by the Rapid Support 

Forces (RSF) in Darfur’’; 

Whereas, on November 14, 2023, the United Nations Special 

Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu 

Nderitu, expressed extreme concern with the ‘‘serious allegations of mass killings’’ in Ardamata, which ‘‘may constitute acts of genocide’’, citing reports that the violence 

killed more than 800 people and displaced 8,000 Sudanese individuals to Chad; 


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Whereas, on December 6, 2023, Secretary of State Antony 

Blinken determined that, since the fighting between the 

SAF and the RSF began on April 15, 2023, Sudan has 

experienced war crimes, crimes against humanity, and 

ethnic cleansing in ‘‘haunting echoes of the genocide that 

began almost 20 years ago in Darfur’’, including Masalit 

civilians being ‘‘hunted down and left for dead in the 

streets, their homes set on fire, and told that there is no 

place in Sudan for them’’; 

Whereas a December 15, 2023, Reuters special investigative 

report detailed the targeted killing of Masalit men and 

boys by the RSF, about which an emergency protection 

officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for 

Refugees explained that ‘‘the objective of the killings 

seems to be the elimination of future fighters as well as 

the line of ancestry of a specific ethnic group’’, referring 

to the Masalit people; 

Whereas the RSF has killed Masalit political and traditional 

leaders in El Geneina, West Darfur, including Khamis 

Abdullah Abbakar, the Governor of West Darfur, and 

Farsha Mohamed Arbab, a prominent leader of the 

Masalit Sultanate; 

Whereas, on May 9, 2024, Human Rights Watch reported 

that attacks by the RSF and allied militias in El 

Geneina, the capital city of Sudan’s West Darfur state, 

killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands 

as refugees, from April to November 2023; 

Whereas there is significant evidence of widespread, systematic actions against the non-Arab ethnic communities of 

Darfur, including the Masalit people, committed by the 

RSF and allied militias that meet one or more of the criVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:50 Jun 28, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR1328.IH HR1328

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teria under Article II of the Genocide Convention, including— 

(1) killing members of the non-Arab ethnic communities in Darfur in mass killings of civilians, including 

summary executions in the streets and shootings of civilians fleeing across the Wadi Kaja river and to the Chad 

border, targeted killings of men and boys, targeted 

killings of Masalit leaders, and burials in mass graves; 

(2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of such communities, including through extrajudicial 

detention, torture and beatings, extortion, sexual and 

gender-based violence, mass rape, sexual slavery, and 

forced displacement; and 

(3) deliberately inflicting on such communities conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part, including the annihilation 

of villages, targeted attacks on marketplaces and schools, 

widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and telecommunication, the looting of homes and hospitals, assaults on camps for displaced persons, the destruction of 

humanitarian facilities, the killing of aid workers, and restrictions on humanitarian aid and access; and 

Whereas credible descriptions of the RSF’s objective of elimination of the line of ancestry of the non-Arab tribes of 

Darfur, survivors’ statements reporting that identifying 

as Masalit is a death sentence, and reports that the RSF 

made clear that there is no place in Sudan for the 

Masalit, against the backdrop of the prior genocide in 

Darfur, evince a specific intent on the part of the RSF 

to destroy the Masalit and other non-Arab ethnic groups 

in Darfur in whole or in substantial part: Now, therefore, 

be it 


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1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) condemns atrocities, including those that 

3 amount to genocide, being committed by the Rapid 

4 Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias against 

5 the Masalit people and other non-Arab ethnic groups 

6 in Darfur, and the roles of the RSF and Sudanese 

7 Armed Forces (SAF) in perpetrating atrocities, hu8 manitarian catastrophe, and the destruction of 

9 Sudan; 

10 (2) calls for an immediate end to the war and 

11 all violence and atrocities in Sudan; 

12 (3) urges the Government of the United 

13 States— 

14 (A) to take immediate steps with the inter15 national community, including through multilat16 eral fora, to protect civilians, including by es17 tablishing safe zones and humanitarian cor18 ridors, enforcing the United Nations Security 

19 Council arms embargo on Darfur, and 

20 brokering a comprehensive cease-fire between 

21 the warring parties in Sudan; 

22 (B) to support the consistent and trans23 parent documentation of atrocities and geno24 cidal acts in Sudan by instituting a mechanism 

25 that will, to the greatest extent possible, pubVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:50 Jun 28, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR1328.IH HR1328

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1 licly release such documentation on a consistent 

2 and regular basis; 

3 (C) to immediately identify mechanisms 

4 through which to fund local, community-based 

5 organizations that are currently providing non6 lethal assistance to the Sudanese people in con7 flict-affected areas that traditional imple8 menting partners cannot reach, including for 

9 the delivery of food, medical aid, and shelter to 

10 individuals impacted by the war in Sudan; and 

11 (D) to review and update the atrocities de12 termination for Sudan every 180 days for 3 

13 years from enactment; 

14 (4) supports tribunals and international crimi15 nal investigations to hold the RSF and allied militias 

16 accountable for war crimes, crimes against human17 ity, and genocide; and 

18 (5) calls on the Atrocity Prevention Task Force 

19 to conduct a comprehensive review of its efforts to 

20 prevent, analyze, and respond to atrocities in Sudan, 

21 in alignment with the 2022 United States Strategy 

22 to Anticipate, Prevent, and Respond to Atrocities. 

Æ 


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