Over one year ago the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb for crimes against humanity in four towns in Darfur: Mukjar, Bindisi, Kodoom and Arawala.
On the eve of the ICC prosecutor’s report to the UN Security Council on Sudan’s defiance, Aegis releases the first English language film of interviews and survivors of those attacks who describe clearly many of the crimes allegedly committed by these two men: murder, rape, ethnic cleansing and torture.
Rape - victim from Mukjar, age 14: “Two years ago a group of twenty young women went some way out of the camp. The janjaweed caught five of us. They used us. And there they killed my aunt. Twelve from my family were killed.”
Murder – daughter of victim from Bindisi, in her 30s: “[My father] was elderly, he couldn’t run so we were trying to get him on a donkey and we couldn’t so we left him there….I saw Ali Kushayb shooting people. He killed my father.”
Torture – victim from Mukjar, in his 30s: “They tied my hands and legs. Then I was hung from the door. They beat me on my back to confess but I told them I hadn’t got a gun. They burned me. They used all means. After three hours they took me down and dragged me along the ground.”
Janjaweed defector
The film also includes testimony from a Janjaweed defector who fled to the UK who tells of his own involvement in attacks in North Darfur, and the role of the Government in recruiting the Janjaweed:
“People have weapons, and they're ignorant. The result, when people get to the village, everybody has a weapon to shoot everybody who you meet. You will not distinguish between children, the elderly or women, you just shoot and kill everybody. You can't tell if this is an innocent person, or not fighting, you just kill everybody indiscriminately.”
