Newly arrived Sudanese refugees wait to be registered to collect food aid at the Oure Cassoni refugee camp in Chad, on Feb. 24.Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Payam Akhavan is the Human Rights Chair at Massey College, University of Toronto, and former International Criminal Court special adviser on genocide.
Roméo Dallaire is chair of Genocide Prevention and Peace at Massey College, and served as UN Force Commander during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Mutasim Ali and Yonah Diamond are senior legal advisers at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
As unimaginable atrocities in Sudan are met with indifference – amidst the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe – we write with despair at how far the world has fallen from the promise of “never again.” A new investigation into the genocidal campaign by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), targeting non-Arab groups in Darfur, revealed that the militia razed more than 40 farming communities to the ground before massacring the besieged people of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.
Last month, the UN Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan confirmed what was already clear – the RSF atrocities bear “the hallmarks of genocide.” This authoritative finding should move Parliament to recognize the genocide in a unified voice. But symbolic condemnation will not by itself protect those vulnerable communities still facing destruction.
The non-Arab communities targeted in Darfur were already living in famine-imposed conditions and displaced by earlier genocidal violence. Starting in April, 2024, the RSF deliberately blocked food, aid and medicine from entering El Fasher for 18 months, while destroying its main sources of sustenance. When the RSF stormed the city last October, they murdered at least 6,000 civilians in just three days in what is being called “the fastest and largest killing spree this century.” Deeply disturbing accounts describe survivors being raped in front of the lifeless bodies of their loved ones. Not even children have been spared.
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The RSF does not hide its genocidal intentions, repeatedly declaring its plan of “extermination… like we did to Masalit [in West Darfur].” One notorious commander, known as the “Butcher of El Fasher,” called his victims “locusts” and boasted one day of “planning to kill 2,000 … but lost count so I will start again.”
Yet world leaders have chosen to look away. By 2024, dozens of experts already determined genocide was under way. In January, 2025, the U.S. reached the same conclusion. So has the UN.
The international community had years to act on Darfur. What’s more, in the decades of “lessons learned” since the historic failures of Srebrenica, Rwanda, and Darfur’s first genocide, we are now equipped with far more advanced technology, which had long warned of and recorded the mass killing in real time.
This continuing genocide did not happen in a vacuum. As each massacre unfolded, the RSF and their external backers saw that they would not face any consequences.
The UN Security Council has not adopted a single resolution since June, 2024, and the only two conflict-related resolutions left out any measures to stop the violence. Major powers have absolved themselves of responsibility by treating the situation as an “internal” civil war, overlooking the outside actors clearly fuelling the atrocities in a cynical struggle for regional dominance.
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More than two decades ago, when prime minister Paul Martin sent General Roméo Dallaire to Darfur, Canada was one of the world’s leading humanitarian donors, while providing helicopters and vehicles to the African Union’s mission to move supplies throughout the region. Though Canada still serves as a leading source of humanitarian funding for Sudan, Ottawa can do more.
First, Canada should expand the use of targeted sanctions against the perpetrators and enablers of atrocities, among both the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces, starting with those already sanctioned by our allies, including RSF commanders on the UN Security Council sanctions list. It has been nearly a year since Canada issued any such sanctions.
Second, Canada should support efforts before international courts against the main actors implicated, including external weapon suppliers.
Third, Canada should increase emergency immigration measures for Sudan commensurate with the magnitude and urgency of this catastrophe, expedite pending applications, and raise the caps to reunite affected Canadian-Sudanese families.
Finally, Canada should join the new international atrocity-prevention coalition, and play a lead role in co-ordinating policy responses.
While the world could have prevented the massacres of El Fasher, it’s not too late to protect the Sudanese communities that remain. Canada now has a chance to stand up for the values it has long espoused, at a time that so desperately calls for principled leadership.