ICC convicts Sudanese militia leader of war crimes in Darfur genocide
The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Kholood Khair, the head of a think tank founded in Sudan, to gain a deeper understanding of the significance of the ICC ruling against Sudanese militia leader Ali Kushayb.
Conflict & Justice
Updated:
13:35
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman attends a hearing at the ICC at The Hague, in the Netherlands, Oct. 6, 2025.
Piroschka van de Wouw/Pool via AP
Sudanese militia leader Ali Kushayb has become the first person to be tried and convicted for war crimes committed in the Darfur region 20 years ago. The International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted him on Monday on charges of mass murder and sexual violence going back to 2003, though Kushayb has claimed it’s a case of mistaken identity.
Echoes of that conflict in Darfur persist today in the brutal civil war that has engulfed all of Sudan.
The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler spoke with Kholood Khair, head of the Confluence Advisory think tank founded in Sudan, who joined from Nairobi, Kenya, to understand the significance of the ICC ruling.
Click on the blue player above to listen to this interview, as well as one with Lucy Acibu, a midwife with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), who shares her experiences helping a growing number of women affected by sexual violence at the hands of militias. (A warning that some details in the conversation are graphic.)
Carolyn Beeler: Tell us more about what Ali Kushayb has been found guilty of.
Kholood Khair: He’s been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the Darfur genocide of 20 years ago. He’s one of five different people under ICC indictment, including the former President Omar al-Bashir. Ali Kushayb, specifically, was known as the “colonel of colonels,” i.e. one of the main people on the ground who acted as a conduit between the military government in Khartoum and the Janjaweed forces and the popular defense forces that really led the genocide on the ground in Darfur. And as such, he was credited with some of the planning around the genocidal attacks on the non-Arab populations in Darfur at the time.
His charges go back to 2003. Why did it take so long to get a conviction?
It’s taken a long time because, for one thing, it’s been very difficult to get evidence out of Sudan. Under the Bashir regime, which lasted until 2019, there was almost no collaboration with the ICC, and in fact, there was a very hostile engagement by the government in Khartoum against the ICC and its successive prosecutors.
Now, during the transitional period from 2019 to 2021, there was greater collaboration, but even then the military government at the time stopped the prosecutors and the investigation teams from the ICC from going to Darfur to collect evidence, as well as to collect victim testimonies. And since 2021, that has been almost impossible, as well.
Now, during the transitional period from 2019 to 2021, there was greater collaboration, but even then the military government at the time stopped the prosecutors and the investigation teams from the ICC from going to Darfur to collect evidence, as well as to collect victim testimonies. And since 2021, that has been almost impossible, as well.
Sudanese displaced families take shelter in a school after being evacuated by the Sudanese army from areas once controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Omdurman, Sudan, located across the Nile River from Khartoum, March 23, 2025.AP/File photo
At the time, 20 years ago, the US government determined that genocide was taking place in Darfur. Can you remind us what happened?
There were many people in Darfur at the time, particularly from non-Arab groups, who felt that the government in Khartoum was marginalizing them and stopping them effectively from engaging in opportunities that would better their lives, put forward legal arrangements that made it difficult for them to live their lives how they wanted, etc.
And as a result, rebellions grew in different parts of Darfur, specifically two main rebel movements came out of those conditions. And in order to quell those rebellions, the military government in Kharoum cultivated these Arab nomadic groups that became known as the Janjaweed to put down, very violently, this rebellion.
And because of that, ethnic cleavages between those who were being attacked by the government and those who were putting up a rebellion against the government, what you had was effectively what looked like an ethnically driven conflict.
And as a result, rebellions grew in different parts of Darfur, specifically two main rebel movements came out of those conditions. And in order to quell those rebellions, the military government in Kharoum cultivated these Arab nomadic groups that became known as the Janjaweed to put down, very violently, this rebellion.
And because of that, ethnic cleavages between those who were being attacked by the government and those who were putting up a rebellion against the government, what you had was effectively what looked like an ethnically driven conflict.
So, more than 20 years later, one of the people responsible for this has been held to account. What does that guilty verdict mean for people in Sudan today?
We’ve seen many from Darfur, particularly human rights groups from Darfur, as well as victims groups also from Darfur come out very strongly to say, “Yes, it’s taken a long time. Justice delayed is often justice denied. But it still matters to us that someone from the leadership of the campaign to annihilate our people has been found guilty.”
The ICC is meant to be the court of last resort. But in a context like Sudan, where there are no courts of first resort, it’s still significant that some kind of justice has been meted out, even if it’s two decades too late.
The ICC is meant to be the court of last resort. But in a context like Sudan, where there are no courts of first resort, it’s still significant that some kind of justice has been meted out, even if it’s two decades too late.
This justice comes at a time when Darfur is again beset by violence due to Sudan’s civil war. What are conditions like there today?
A lot of people from Darfur and a lot of these human rights groups and Darfur survivors groups say that what they experienced 20 years ago pales in comparison to what they’re experiencing now. And indeed, the news reports that we’re getting from Darfur show the famine has spread across the region of Darfur, the militarization during this war has meant that there are very few safe places for civilians across the Darfur region, as well as, of course, the absolute violence meted out, particularly by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), against different people — women, men, children — the starvation campaigns, particularly in el-Fasher, the ethnic cleansing campaigns and internally displaced people’s camps, especially camps like Zamzam, which was very violently cleared in April. We’re seeing the sort of apocalyptic levels of violence playing out in Darfur, as well as a genocide just within the past two years against the Masalit community in West Darfur.
Smoke billows after drone strikes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the northern port in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, Sudan, May 6, 2025.AP/File photo
Some of the charges against Kushayb are related to sexual violence. Is sexual violence, rape, also being weaponized in the current conflict?
It absolutely has. Today, Sudan has the world’s largest protection crisis specifically related to conflict-related sexual violence and violence against women and girls, but we’re also seeing sexual violence against men and boys. And, in large, part the sexual violence campaign is not and has not been, even 20 years ago, incidental to the violence of this conflict. It is very much part and parcel of how this war is being prosecuted.
And when you say sexual violence is not incidental in this conflict, it is not just militia members or soldiers with free rein to do whatever they want, it is part and parcel of the war plan to damage and stigmatize these communities?
Yes, absolutely. And this goes back many decades during the first Darfur conflict from 2003 onwards, we heard, for example, from President Bashir at the time, really disgusting sentiments such as, the women in Darfur should be proud to be raped by men from northern and central Sudan.
And that’s really sort of emblematic of the type of thinking that has emanated from Khartoum is, in many ways, still being shared by some of these RSF that were part and parcel of that Khartoum regime. And so, it is very much intended to humiliate and subjugate, but in many ways the powers that be, as it were, don’t see a problem in it.
And I think that has been a major driver of the propensity towards committing sexual violence that we have seen, to how prolific it has been throughout this war.
And that’s really sort of emblematic of the type of thinking that has emanated from Khartoum is, in many ways, still being shared by some of these RSF that were part and parcel of that Khartoum regime. And so, it is very much intended to humiliate and subjugate, but in many ways the powers that be, as it were, don’t see a problem in it.
And I think that has been a major driver of the propensity towards committing sexual violence that we have seen, to how prolific it has been throughout this war.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.