The Post's investigation shows 'bigotry' behind 2023 massacre in Darfur • FRANCE 24 English

well we're going to take a look now at one particular Massacre of the Sudan War it took place in June last year and is considered one of the First episodes of ethnically motivated violence in the conflict now what makes the killings unusual and why we're talking about them now is that it's rare to get this kind of footage out of Sudan the reporting is a product of a joint investigation by Sky News Lighthouse reports leemont and the Washington Post and Katherine heral from The Washington Post she's their East Africa bureau chief joins me live now from Nairobi thank you for speaking to us today thank you for the opportunity first of all I want to play our viewers two clips of the aftermath of an execution this was as I say in June last year on the 3D of June it took place in a place called cassab in Dar for let's start by just taking a look at that footage and Catherine just tell us then what is it that we are looking at in those images who attacked whom and what happened so you're seeing the aftermath an attack on cab Camp which housed many displaced families who'd fled the previous conflict in dark War uh one of those clips shows the bodies of five brothers who witnesses say were hiding in their house and they were dragged out um by uniformed rsf forces they had their hands bound behind their back and um they were shot dead we spoke to some body uh who witnessed the mother pleading for the lives of her five Sons before they were taken out and killed she offered to trade her life for theirs but she was clubbed with a gun butt and and her her sons were taken away and it's taken over a year Katherine for this footage to come to light now what kinds of challenges did you and your colle colleagues face trying to tell this story and get this information out it's very difficult to get uh into Sudan first of all uh the military has only started letting people in this year been very difficult to um make contact with people because phone lines are down in many places and so is internet uh sometimes there's starlink um links but people very much fear to send things over those because they're often surveilled so sometimes they want to send things out in a thumb drive or sometimes it might just be a case if they've now crossed the border and they can get it to somebody so it's quite difficult uh to get things out of Sudan but there is also a lot of evidence online Human Rights Watch has just published a report about this showing things like torture um extrajudicial executions dismemberment of bodies there's quite a lot of evidence out there but we had several videos from the same incident and in the article that you wrote that accompanies this footage that you've been working on H you talk about the kind of Slaughter that we we played that clip of being routine in this war so is what you've shown us today the tip of the iceberg in terms of ethnically motivated violence now in Dar unfortunately um the violence in Sudan has been massively underreported the United States estimates 150,000 people have been killed so far uh it's happening on a daily basis it you know it can be the shelling of a crowded Marketplace the shelling of hospital um this kind of Slaughter in which civilians are taken out and killed uh from their homes a lot of it does seem to have an ethnic basis not all of it um but several of the survivors of this particular killing said that those who were attacking them kept repeatedly refer referring to them as slaves which is an ethnic slur there obviously indeed and as you say what is particularly significant in this footage is the ethnically motivated nature of the massacre now when viewers think of Dar four many will think of the genocide 20 years ago carried out by groups like The janed how does this footage compared to those events is there an echo here of the genocide of 20 years ago that's certainly what people are fearing um and many people are saying there is um the United Nations has come out and said that crimes like ethnic cleansing are being committed um massive sexual violence which we also saw in the DAR for War I I first went to DAR for in 2005 I think it was so certainly I see Echoes of that the major difference that you have now is that the military and the janed were working together in those days and now the military is working together with the AF former African Rebels that was fighting against the RSA which is the sort of in you know the rsf was formed out of the janed so the alignments are different among the armed groups and the rsf the rapid support forces that you just mentioned there have responded to this footage that you and your colleagues have produced and have been reporting on they say effectively that the ethnic motivation for these attacks were overblown or were exploited for a western audience and that they claim now people are are actually living together peacefully in this part of Dar I wonder what you make of that they are certainly living together um in parts of Dar for including inum whether it is peaceful or not um it's very difficult to say uh without visiting there without knowing the conditions that they're living under um I I'm aware of what the rsf has said um and I certainly think that there are many motivations for the violence including conflict over resources politics but nobody can deny that ethnic tensions are really fueling this violence and are a significant um contributor to this killing and as you say you know the United United States has said there is evidence of war crimes being committed now in Sudan crimes against humanity as well the death toll is Dreadful and it is enormous the Sudan story though isn't getting heard or isn't capturing the kind of public imagination in the way that it did back in the early 2000s I wonder why you think that is is that because you know we have so many other big conflicts on the world stage right now Gaza Ukraine is it because journalists like yourself can't get access to Sudan why do you think we hear about it um well why do you think we don't hear about it enough Sudan has always been very difficult to access including during the last war and our four um I think a major difference now now is we are in the era of uh poly crisis there is Gaza there is Ukraine um there is Sudan there is still Somalia South Sudan fighting in Ethiopia there are only so many crises that people can hear about without their eyes beginning to glaze over which is a real privilege for Western audiences to be able to turn off the TV set of course millions of people don't have that luxury a final question for you then um what should governments the United Kingdom the United States be doing in the wake of this reporting like yours demonstrating uh the scale of ethnic violence in Sudan be doing to try and put pressure on the right parties to quell this this Dreadful violence uh well I can't say what government should be doing but I can tell you what they are doing they just attempted to hold um talks in Geneva um with the United States and several other Act over humanitarian access the rsf attended those and the sudanes military did not uh but the military did finally open an access point for Aid to cross over from Chad into darur um which can make a difference to millions of starving people um it's very difficult to put pressure on the Waring parties because their backers are not Western governments um and their backers haven't been that respons Ive I think to messages from governments who who would like to see a ceasefire that they should stop fueling this conflict Katherine herel talking to us there she's the East Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post thank you thank you