How Arab fighters carried out an ethnic massacre in Sudan
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00:00 They were targeting the Sultan's family.
00:04 They were targeting us because we were from the same race.
00:08 They were targeting the whole family.
00:11 Fatma Bahrauddin and her family belong to the Masalit tribe,
00:15 an ethnic African group from the Sudanese state of West Darfur.
00:20 A Reuters investigation has found that between late April and mid-June 2023,
00:26 the Masalit were targeted in an ethnic killing campaign.
00:31 The carnage was carried out by an Arab paramilitary
00:34 called the Rapid Support Forces, RSF,
00:37 and allied Arab militias known as Janjaweed.
00:42 At least 1,000 victims were buried in a single cemetery
00:46 in the city of El Janina in West Darfur.
00:50 The full death toll, according to a hospital administrator in the city,
00:54 was more than 4,000.
00:56 One of them was Bahrauddin's father and brother of the Masalit Sultan.
01:01 We tried to help the people who were carrying my father's body.
01:08 We went to the local people and asked them to help us carry my father's body.
01:16 Some people refused.
01:18 Some said they couldn't because the rapid support forces were very violent.
01:25 Reuters interviewed more than 120 people who fled El Janina to Chad.
01:31 They described unimaginable horrors—children being shot, women and girls raped,
01:37 people picked off by snipers in the streets, and others slaughtered inside mosques.
01:43 Alongside their accounts, Reuters analyzed satellite imagery, photographs,
01:48 social media footage, and lists of the dead compiled by local rights activists
01:53 to assemble the first comprehensive chronicle of the violence
01:57 that consumed El Janina earlier this year.
02:00 The RSF did not respond to questions for this report.
02:03 Arab militia leaders couldn't be reached.
02:06 In public comments, Arab tribal leaders have denied engaging in ethnic cleansing
02:11 in West Darfur.
02:14 The killings in El Janina followed days after the outbreak of a civil war
02:19 on April 15 in the Sudanese capital Khartoum between the army and the RSF
02:25 over a plan to integrate their forces as part of a transition to civilian rule.
02:30 The campaign had a target, the darker-skinned Masalit tribe,
02:35 for whom West Darfur is their historical homeland.
02:38 Multiple survivors say the Arab attackers often referred to the Masalit
02:43 as "anbai," meaning "slave."
02:45 Survivors say the militia men were particularly focused on killing Masalit men
02:50 and boys seen as potential fighters.
02:54 Adam Hassan managed to flee to Chad with some of his children.
02:58 They killed my son and threw him in the fire.
03:02 They killed my father, but he didn't go to the fire.
03:07 We left him there, but we didn't kill him.
03:11 They started the campaign at 8 a.m.
03:17 The survivors' accounts reveal an ethnic killing campaign
03:22 that was systematic and coordinated.
03:25 The killing frenzy reached a climax over several days in mid-June.
03:29 The flow of corpses was constant.
03:32 Al-Janaynah's Al-Khabat Cemetery turned from a small rectangular plot
03:37 into a sprawling mass grave for at least 1,000 residents.
03:41 At the heart of the violence that has plagued West Darfur
03:46 is a competition for land, water and other scarce resources
03:51 between non-Arab farming communities and nomadic Arab livestock herders.
03:56 Since 2019, hundreds of non-Arabs have been killed
04:01 in attacks by the RSF and Arab militias.
04:04 That's according to United Nations.
04:07 There have been eruptions of ethnic conflict in recent years,
04:11 but none as protracted and systematic as what unfolded in West Darfur
04:16 from April to mid-June.
04:18 The RSF has said it wasn't involved in what it described as a tribal conflict.
04:23 The Arab leaders said the Sudanese military had colluded with the Masalit,
04:28 supplying them with weapons to attack the Arab community.
04:31 The Sudanese army didn't respond to questions for this report,
04:35 including why soldiers stationed in Al-Janaynah
04:38 didn't intervene to protect civilians under attack.
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