A Sudanese court in Port Sudan sentenced Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to death in absentia on Sunday along with 15 co-defendants, including his two brothers, for crimes against humanity and genocide linked to the 2023 massacres in El Geneina, West Darfur. The court held the Rapid Support Forces leader responsible for killings that claimed as many as 15,000 lives, most of them Masalit, and ordered authorities to seek the extradition of the convicted through Interpol.
Among the dead was West Darfur Governor Khamis Abakar, who was killed in June 2023 after RSF forces seized El Geneina. United Nations experts concluded the violence constituted one of the deadliest episodes of the war that has displaced roughly 12 million people across Sudan.
The verdict comes as the Sudanese Defence and Security Council responded to a U.S. proposal for a 90-day humanitarian ceasefire between the army and the RSF. Meanwhile, the United Nations warned that 825,000 children under five face acute malnutrition in the country.