Sudan tells World Court UAE fuels Darfur genocide
By Stephanie van den Berg
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Sudan on Thursday told the International Court of Justice that the United Arab Emirates was violating the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in Darfur and asked judges to issue emergency preventative orders.
Sudan's complaint to the Hague-based ICJ - known as the World Court - is in connection with intense ethnic-based attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied Arab militias against the non-Arab Masalit tribe in 2023 in West Darfur, documented in detail by Reuters.
The UAE has repeatedly dismissed the filing of the case as a political game.
"The genocide against the Masalit is being carried out by the Rapid Support Force, believed to be Arab from Darfur, with the support and complicity of the United Arab Emirates," Sudan's acting justice minister Muawia Osman, told the United Nations' top court.
Attacks against the Masalit were determined to be genocide by the United States in January.
Sudan accuses the UAE of arming the RSF which have been fighting the Sudanese army in a two-year-old civil war - a charge the UAE denies but U.N. experts and U.S. lawmakers have found credible.
"This is not a legitimate legal action; it is a cynical and baseless PR stunt, designed to distract from the Sudanese Armed Forces' own appalling record of atrocities," Reem Ketait, a top official at the UAE ministry of foreign affairs, told journalists on Thursday.
The justice minister asked the court to order the UAE to prevent genocidal acts against the Masalit.
As cases before the ICJ can take years to reach a final conclusion, states can ask for emergency measures which are meant to ensure the dispute between the states does not escalate in the meantime.
ICJ experts have said that the UAE signed the genocide treaty but made reservations to the court's legal power to rule on disputes, making it likely the court will eventually throw out the case because it lacks jurisdiction.
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