The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan has arrived in Sudan for a week of talks including on outstanding arrest warrants for genocide in Darfur.
Local sources reported on Tuesday that Khan will hold talks on ‘ways to boost cooperation’ on investigations into the crimes committed during the devastating civil war which ended over a decade ago in Darfur.
The United Nations have continued to estimate that at least 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in the conflict, which erupted in the vast western region in 2003.
Read Also: EU Hails US Lifting Of ICC Sanctions
Last week, Sudan’s cabinet voted to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC, a move seen as a step towards ousted president Omar al-Bashir potentially facing trial for genocide.
Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for three decades, was deposed in April 2019 following months of protests.
The ICC said that Khan, a British lawyer who replaced Fatou Bensouda as prosecutor of The Hague-based war crimes court in June, was on a “week-long mission to discuss cooperation with the authorities and other stakeholders”.
Africa Today News, New York understands that since August 2019, Sudan has been led by a transitional civilian-military administration, which vowed to bring justice to victims of crimes committed under Bashir.
Khartoum signed a peace deal last October with key Darfuri rebel groups, with some of their leaders taking top jobs in government, although violence continues to dog the region.
War in Darfur broke out in 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms complaining of systematic discrimination by Bashir’s Arab-dominated government.
Khartoum responded by unleashing the notorious Janjaweed militia, recruited from among the region’s nomadic peoples.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK