Sudan army to investigate beheadings
Soldiers showed severed heads in recent video
Members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) beheaded two individuals and filmed themselves showing off the severed heads, prompting the SAF General Command to announce an investigation into the shocking incident.
Circulating videos show a group of more than a dozen Sudanese army soldiers jeering and passing around the two severed heads, while threatening that all members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) will meet the same fate.
Several of the men hold up knives and a sword, while they chant slogans and threats. One of the soldiers joyfully broke out an accordion.
One of the soldiers called the victims “rotten habash,” a word usually used for Ethiopians, but which could also be a generalized ethnic slur.
It’s unclear if the victims were beheaded while alive or mutilated after being killed in another manner. Videos clearly show the faces of the two victims, but their identity is unknown; it’s unclear if they were RSF combatants, prisoners of war, or civilians.
Mutilating the bodies of the enemy is a war crime under the Geneva Convention, as is executing prisoners of war or civilian prisoners.
Brigadier General Nabil Abdallah, the army spokesperson, announced Friday,
“Against the background of shocking content of videos circulated yesterday showing two decapitated individuals, the Armed Forces state that they are currently investigating the matter and those involved will be held accountable if the investigation results prove that they belong to our forces.”
“The Armed Forces also emphasize their full adherence to the laws, norms of war, code of conduct during war operations and non-compliance with terrorist militias [the RSF] in their continuous violations since the beginning of this war.”
The videos are potentially geolocatable but we have not identified where or when they were filmed. However, the gear, uniforms, dialect, and contents of the speeches of the soldiers confirm the authenticity of the videos, i.e. they were actually filmed recently in Sudan, and the heads also appear to be real and not props.
Sudanese groups condemn incident
The Sudanese political party, the Forces of Freedom and Change, condemned the incident saying, “This is a crime if they were killed by slaughter and an even more heinous crime if the heads were cut off after the killing.”
“The crime would be doubled if it was against civilians not involved in the war.”
Forces of Freedom and Change added in a statement, “The shocking and horrific video that was broadcast and the terrorist behavior are consistent with the practices of the dissolved National Congress Party, which has committed crimes and has a long terrorist record, and is allied to extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others, which differ in name but agree in behavior.” The statement continued,
“This heinous crime confirms the urgent need to end this war now and immediately to prevent it from degenerating into a civil war [i.e., ethnic war] and developing it by attracting fighters with terrorist feuds to apply the same criminal methods of slaughtering people and beheading them, as happened in Syria, Libya and a number of other countries that suffered from unrest...”
Darfur Regional Governor Minni Minawi likewise condemned the incident, saying, “War has morals. It is unacceptable to watch the bodies of people with their heads mutilated while we are looking for victory for Sudan and not for individuals.”
Minawi went on to compare the atrocity to the desecration of the body of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abakr, who was stoned after his death and driven over by a car, in the presence of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soldiers in the West Darfur capital.
“This method is not much different from what the RSF committed in mutilating the body of the martyr Khamis. I call on everyone to know that war has morals and there is no justification for violating its laws, no matter how hostile people have become.”
For its part, the RSF condemned the beheadings, saying in a press release, “The only way to halt their barbarism is to dismantle them and prevent them from ever again ascending to power. Regrettably, this heinous crime is not an isolated incident against our citizens. This extremist group has repeatedly documented their crimes involving bloodshed, slaughter, and extrajudicial killings.”
The RSF itself has executed prisoners of war, and massacred hundreds of civilians. The RSF also routinely whip and humiliate SAF prisoners. However, RSF spokesperson Fatih Gurashi noted that they hold thousands of army fighters as prisoners and promised they would not be mistreated in the same way.
SWM: Reporting on conflict events and war crimes
Thank you for reading Sudan War Monitor. You can support our journalism by subscribing for $10/month, or by making a one-time donation. We’re so grateful to the many generous people who have backed this project so far. 🙏