ICC Investigates Darfur Killings

NEW YORK, - JULY 13: Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan speaks during a UN Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters on July 13, 2023 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP
NEW YORK, - JULY 13: Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan speaks during a UN Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters on July 13, 2023 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP
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ICC Investigates Darfur Killings

NEW YORK, - JULY 13: Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan speaks during a UN Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters on July 13, 2023 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP
NEW YORK, - JULY 13: Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan speaks during a UN Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters on July 13, 2023 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP

The International Criminal Court is investigating a surge in hostilities in Sudan's Darfur region since mid-April, including reports of killings, rapes and crimes affecting children, the top prosecutor told the United Nations on Thursday.

"The office can confirm that it has commenced investigations in relation to incidents occurring in the context of the present hostilities," the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan's office said in a report to the UN Security Council.

ICC prosecutors are "closely tracking reports of extrajudicial killings, burning of homes and markets, and looting, in Al Geneina, West Darfur, as well as the killing and displacement of civilians in North Darfur and other locations across Darfur," the report said.

It is also examining "allegations of sexual and gender-based crimes, including mass rapes and alleged reports of violence against and affecting children," it said.

Khan told the Security Council that anybody inside or outside Sudan who aids or abets crimes in Darfur will be investigated. And he said he instructed his office to give priority to crimes against children and sexual- and gender-based violence.

The regular army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling in the capital Khartoum and other areas of Sudan in a power struggle that exploded in mid-April.

More than 3 million people have been uprooted, including more than 700,000 who have fled into neighboring countries.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week that Sudan, Africa's third largest country by land area, was on the brink of full-scale civil war that could destabilize the wider region.

While the ICC cannot currently work in Sudan due to the security situation, it intends to do so as soon as possible, the report said. Under a 2005 UN Security Council resolution, its jurisdiction is limited to the Darfur region.

Earlier Thursday, the UN human rights office said at least 87 bodies – some of them from the ethnic African Masalit tribe – were uncovered in a mass grave in West Darfur, and cited “credible information” that they were killed by Rapid Support Force fighters and allied fighters.



Lebanese President Says Hezbollah Disarmament Will Come through Dialogue Not ‘Force’ 

President Joseph Aoun in Baabda on Feb. 11, 2025. (AFP)
President Joseph Aoun in Baabda on Feb. 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Lebanese President Says Hezbollah Disarmament Will Come through Dialogue Not ‘Force’ 

President Joseph Aoun in Baabda on Feb. 11, 2025. (AFP)
President Joseph Aoun in Baabda on Feb. 11, 2025. (AFP)

Lebanon's president said Monday that the disarmament of the Hezbollah group will come through negotiations as part of a national defense strategy and not through “force.”

The Lebanese government has made a decision that “weapons will only be in the hands of the state,” but there are “discussions around how to implement this decision,” President Joseph Aoun said in an interview with Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.

Those discussions are in the form of a “bilateral dialogue” between the presidency and Hezbollah, he said.

Lebanon has been under pressure by the United States to speed up the disarmament of Hezbollah but there are fears within Lebanon that forcing the issue could lead to civil conflict.

“Civil peace is a red line for me,” Aoun said.

Aoun said the Lebanese army — of which he was formerly commander — is “doing its duty” in confiscating weapons and dismantling unauthorized military facilities in southern Lebanon, as outlined in the ceasefire agreement that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in late November, and sometimes in areas farther north.