Burning children alive: War in Darfur sparks new fears of genocide
War in Darfur Sparks New Fears of Genocide
Victims in Darfur, South Sudan, recount yet another round of atrocities committed by unidentified masked men, after two decades of mass killings in Sudan that captured global attention, as reported by the American newspaper “The Wall Street Journal.”
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Amid the escalating crisis, South Sudan opens a new camp for those fleeing the conflict in the north
New Atrocities
According to the newspaper, Tayiba Hassan Adam witnessed a group of men dousing gasoline on the small brick-and-grass house, while their companions aimed rifles at her, causing panic. Hassan Adam’s three youngest children—Mohammed, aged 10, Awadia, aged 8, and Fayez, aged 7—were trapped inside.
Moments before, the gunmen moved chairs to block the only metal door of the building, then dropped matchsticks into the flammable liquid.
Hassan Adam had hoped the house would provide shelter for her family from the wave of attacks in Darfur region of Sudan. Now, the house was ablaze, and all she could do was pray for her children to find a way out.
She says the men shouted at her and other adults detained in the house yard, “We will shoot you if you try to enter,” as screams of her children amid the flames prompted the men, according to Hassan Adam, to chatter.
Tayiba Hassan Adam, still in shock and sorrow at a refugee camp on the outskirts in Chad, across the border from her Sudanese homeland, says, “They were just laughing, they knew there were children inside.”
Inside the burning house, Mohammed huddled in a corner of the smoke-filled room, seeing his younger siblings running towards the only remaining exit—a small annex engulfed in flames instantly.
From outside, Tayiba saw the building collapse over Awadia. Fayez stumbled out, severely burned on his head, legs, arms, and abdomen. Mohammed followed, choking, his hands, arms, neck, and shoulders wrapped in bandages, crying out not to be left behind, also suffering severe burns. Her son Fayez died on the same day.
By this point, the assailants had moved on to neighboring homes, including one where three other children perished in the flames, according to Hassan Adam and her daughter Safia.
Based on images captured on June 28 by a global fire monitoring system run by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, researchers at Yale estimated that the fires in Morne affected an area equivalent to about 280 football fields.
The newspaper explains that Tayiba Hassan Adam’s story is just one of a dark pattern of atrocities committed by unknown fighters against indigenous Black communities in Darfur over the past 11 months.
Officials say these acts continue the mass killings that occurred two decades ago, sparking protests worldwide and intense anger from celebrities like George Clooney and Don Cheadle. These atrocities are being revived amid a wider war for control of Sudan – the third-largest country in Africa – between the country’s two most powerful generals.
Shocking Testimonies
The American newspaper explains that this time they are drawing less attention, as former officials and analysts say diplomatic efforts by the United States and other world powers to end the fighting and protect civilians have been overshadowed by bigger foreign policy priorities such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.
Through interviews with over forty refugees in temporary camps near the Sudanese-Chadian border, relief workers, diplomats, and international experts monitoring violence in Darfur—a mineral-rich region roughly the size of Spain—The Wall Street Journal found documented violations against civilians on an industrial scale.
Salima Ibrahim Fadel, 27, was shot while fleeing an ambush set up by snipers, her one-year-old daughter strapped to her back, and two other children holding her hands.
Naima Qamar Abdul Karim, 22, says militants beat her with sticks while carrying her newborn, while Sharif Adam, a 33-year-old car mechanic, witnessed summary executions of 12 of his friends, their hands bound to their backs. Others say they were raped by multiple unidentified men, and their homes were set on fire or bombed.
Many report racial insults hurled at them, describing them as “slaves” or “dogs,” and were told their land no longer belonged to them. Many attacks targeted local communities that had already been displaced due to previous waves of violence in Darfur.
United Nations officials and international monitors say these actions have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Darfur residents and the forced displacement of around 3 million people, over a quarter of the estimated population of the region.
Relief agencies struggle to raise funds to support those in Darfur and its surrounding areas. Many are now on the brink of famine.
A new report by UN investigators estimates that fighting between unidentified militias and poorly armed self-defense forces from the Black Masalit community in the city of Geneina in western Darfur led to the deaths of up to 15,000 people between mid-April and June last year.
The report states that a massacre occurred in an internally displaced persons’ camp in Darfur in November, claiming the lives of up to 2,000 people. However, no one has counted the victims of other atrocities, such as those that occurred in the final days of June when gunmen set fire to the house sheltering Tayiba Hassan Adam’s children.
Curse of Darfur
The newspaper confirms that Darfur resembles a cursed city, where nearly 300,000 Darfurians lost their lives between 2003 and 2008 in what the United States and others described as the first genocide of the 21st century. Many died due to the collapse of local agriculture and healthcare amid the killings, as well as deliberate deprivation of humanitarian aid by Sudanese authorities at the time.
A 22-year-old woman recounts attempting to flee an attack in Geneina when two militants dragged her into a building and raped her. She lay there until her aunt found her, saying, “Many women were raped, including when we were on our way to Edrei.”
In response to the massacres in Darfur in the early 2000s, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for six men it said were responsible, including then-President al-Bashir—the first head of state to be indicted by The Hague-based court, located in the Netherlands, and the first person charged with genocide.
Experts monitoring the conflict say the international fallout from these previous killings has exposed the leaders behind the current atrocities.
