On Wednesday, Sudan agreed to hand over former President Omar al-Bashir and other wanted officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Bashir faces charges for mass atrocities, including genocide and crimes against humanity, committed in Darfur.
The Sudan News Agency reported that Prime Minister (PM) Abdalla Hamdok affirmed the government’s “commitment to achieving justice” for the victims of the Darfur genocide during a meeting with Karim Khan, the Prosecutor General of the ICC, in Khartoum on Wednesday.
Khan was on a visit to Sudan to boost cooperation on the ongoing Darfur investigation. In a press statement, the PM’s Adviser for International Partnerships, Omar Gamar-Eddine, said Khan briefed Hamdok on the need to hand over a number of the accused officials, including Bashir, to the ICC. Gamar-Eddine added that Sudan would cooperate with the ICC and it is about to sign the Rome Statute, the Court’s founding treaty.
Later, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam al-Mahdi said that the “Council of Ministers has decided to hand over the wanted persons to the International Criminal Court.” The final decision was taken during a consultative meeting between the Foreign Ministry and the ICC delegation led by Khan.
The ICC has pushed Sudan to hand over Bashir and others responsible for the Darfur genocide for a long time. Last week, Sudan unanimously approved a draft bill to join the Court. The decision followed former ICC Chief Fatou Bensouda’s visit to the country a month ago, when she emphasised the importance of prosecuting the accused to bring justice to the victims.
In 2008, the ICC accused Bashir of committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur, and the following year it issued an arrest warrant for Bashir for his role in the conflict, marking the first time the ICC sought the arrest of a sitting head of state. Bashir was ousted in 2019 in a military coup following large-scale protests demanding his removal and was replaced by a military-civilian transitional government led by PM Hamdok.
Additionally, the Court has indicted two former officials of the Bashir regime—former Interior Minister Muhammad Hussein and Bashir’s security chief Ahmed Haroun—for their role in the genocide. The ICC has also charged former rebel leaders Abdulla Banda, who is currently in hiding, and Ali Kushayb with crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when rebels launched an insurrection to protest Khartoum’s discrimination against Darfuris and the region’s non-Arab population. In response, the Bashir government unleashed local Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, to fight the rebellion. The Janjaweed carried out mass atrocities against Darfur civilians, including rape, ethnic cleansing, and torture. Reports suggest that around 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were displaced during the conflict.