Rhino: Follow-up – The Darfur Initiative for Justice and Peace condemned the slaughter on Monday of Mayor Sheikh Abdullah, a leader of the Kababish tribe, and 18 other members of the tribe in the Jabra al-Sheikh area of North Kordofan by an armed group affiliated with the army and its allied militias. The Initiative cited sources stating that members of the Joint Forces carried out this crime against civilians on charges of collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces.

The Initiative described the attack as yet another crime to be added to the army’s long record of atrocities, adding in a statement today: “This pattern of ethnic and racial cleansing is not new; the army has previously slaughtered innocent members of the Kababish in the same region and killed Kababish in the city of Al-Daba. This behavior and brutality were preceded by the slaughter of the Al-Kanabi in Al-Jazira, where they were shot and killed as members of specific ethnic and racial groups, and some of them were thrown into the Nile from off bridges and detaining thousands of civilians on charges of collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces).

The statement called on local communities and the international community to take more serious action to isolate terrorist groups and their supporters, curb the flow of weapons to them, hold those involved accountable, enact legislation, and sign international laws that combat terrorism and regulate the treatment of civilians during wars.