III 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 559 

Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militia in 

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

acts of genocide. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

FEBRUARY 12, 2024 

Mr. RISCH (for himself, Mr. CARDIN, Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina, and Mr. 

BOOKER) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 

Committee on Foreign Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and 

allied militia in the Darfur region of Sudan against nonArab 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 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 prevent 


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

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

of the successor Sovereign Council; 

Whereas the underlying conditions that enabled the genocide 

in Darfur that began in 2003 were never fully addressed 


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or resolved, and the elevation of individuals who served 

in leadership of the parties responsible for such genocide, 

including 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 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 the reports, including a July 14, 2023, assessment, 

by the Sudan Conflict Observatory, which is funded by 

the United States, reveal that actions by the RSF in 

Darfur, including besieging cities, destroying villages, and 

committing extrajudicial detentions, killings, and sexual 

violence against Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa ethnic 

groups, mirror the atrocities committed by the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militias between 2003 

and 2004; 

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 


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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; 

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

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 


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Farsha Mohamed Arbab, a prominent leader of the 

Masalit Sultanate; 

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 militia that meet one or more of the criteria 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 that identifying as Masalit 

is a death sentence, and reports that the RSF made clear 


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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 

1 Resolved, That the Senate— 

2 (1) condemns atrocities, including those that 

3 amount to the genocide, being committed by the 

4 Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias 

5 against the Masalit people and other non-Arab eth6 nic groups in Darfur, and the roles of the RSF and 

7 Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in perpetrating 

8 atrocities, humanitarian catastrophe, and the de9 struction of 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 urgent steps work with the 

15 international community, including through 

16 multilateral fora, to establish means to protect 

17 civilians, including by establishing safe zones 

18 and humanitarian corridors, enforcing the 

19 United Nations Security Council arms embargo 

20 on Darfur, and brokering a comprehensive 


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1 ceasefire and disarmament of the warring par2 ties in Sudan; 

3 (B) to support the consistent and trans4 parent documentation of atrocities and geno5 cidal acts in Sudan by instituting a mechanism 

6 that will, to the greatest extent possible, pub7 licly release such documentation on a consistent 

8 and regular basis; 

9 (C) to immediately identify mechanisms 

10 through which to fund local, community-based 

11 organizations that are currently providing hu12 manitarian assistance to the Sudanese people in 

13 conflict affected areas that traditional imple14 menting partners cannot reach, including for 

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

16 individuals impacted by the war in Sudan; and 

17 (D) to regularly review and update the 

18 atrocities determination for Sudan; 

19 (4) supports tribunals and international crimi20 nal investigations to hold the RSF and allied militias 

21 accountable for war crimes, crimes against human22 ity, and genocide; and 

23 (5) calls on the Atrocity Prevention Task Force 

24 to conduct a comprehensive review of its efforts to 

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


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1 in alignment with the 2022 United States Strategy 

2 to Anticipate, Prevent, and Respond to Atrocities. 

Æ 


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