International Criminal Court Making Concrete Progress on Crimes Committed in Darfur, Deputy Prosecutor Tells Security Council, Pointing to Investigation Breakthroughs

International Criminal Court Making Concrete Progress on Crimes Committed in Darfur, Deputy Prosecutor Tells Security Council, Pointing to Investigation Breakthroughs

(Note: Due to the financial liquidity crisis affecting the United Nations and the resulting constraints, the full press release will be published at a later time.)

The International Criminal Court has made major strides in investigating crimes committed recently in Sudan's Darfur region - including linking grave crimes against civilians directly with the perpetrators - the Security Council heard today, as its deputy prosecutor described a "breakthrough" marked by her Office's expanded cooperation and its accelerated interviews with witnesses.

Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Khan, updating the 15-member Council on the Office's progress in Darfur, said it has made "real, concrete progress" in recent months. While not at liberty speak directly about ongoing investigations, she nevertheless said it had conducted crucial interviews with key witnesses that have allowed the Court to draw direct links from crimes to perpetrators.

"This is a paradigm shift - it is a breakthrough," she said, thanking the Court's growing network of partners, including civil society groups and the Government of Sudan, that has helped to accelerate its work.

She recounted her recent visit to eastern Chad, where she heard directly from just a fraction of the many displaced Darfuris there about the harrowing conditions inflicted upon them.

Victims Fear Worst Is Yet to Come

"The victims I spoke with continue to bear the consequences of being driven from their homes," she said. "There is real despair in those [refugee] camps, a clearly and repeatedly stated belief that they have been forgotten by much of the world, that their lives are not given equal value, that the depth of their suffering has not been met with a meaningful response."

She said their specific experiences reflected those of the collective Darfuri community, many of whom saw their parents killed or mothers raped before their very eyes. "People [were] sacrificed as if they were livestock," she said. Children were repeatedly attacked, raped and traumatized by what they have seen.

"Those experiences they shared reflected the mirror image that we see between the pattern of large-scale crimes that led to the referral of the situation to this Council in 2005," she said, citing the same crimes, the same methods of intimidation and humiliation. People are also living in fear that "the worst is still to come", and that the situation in Darfur in 2005 will fully repeat itself.

Act Now to Prevent Further Atrocities

Against that backdrop, she said the Office of the Prosecutor stands united with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its view that the most serious international crimes may be about to take place in the city of Obeid. "We cannot say we did not know," she stressed, warning: "It is for this Council and all States to act now, to prevent further atrocities."

Urging them not to shy away from that moral and legal duty, she reflected on the hope that many displaced Darfuris still place in the Council and the Court, despite all they suffered. She noted the successful conviction in October 2025 of senior Janjaweed militia commander Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman ("Ali Kushayb"), who was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced in December 2025 to 20 years of imprisonment.

There is now real hope, as victim communities look to the work of the Court to provide justice and reparations.

"[Accountability will] send a real message to those who lead these attacks, to those who plan them, to those who support the commission of atrocities from afar and think they can benefit from them - you are mistaken," she added.

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