The United States announced on Tuesday that the rebel paramilitary group fighting in the ongoing Sudanese Civil War, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), are committing genocide.

“The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys — even infants — on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinkin said.

Both the Human Rights Watch and International Criminal Court have previously said that the RSF and their allied militias may be committing genocide against Sudan’s minority non-Arab communities since the conflict began in April 2023.

"Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies,” Blinken said.

The accusation of genocide, while having no international legal strength, has financial implications on the group, as their leader, Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, and his family members, have been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department and will be arrested if they step foot on American soil.

Sudan's civil war has claimed the lives of over 150,000 people and displaced over 9 million after the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces disagreed on how to run the country after staging a coup d'etat which toppled a fragile civilian government.

Since then, over 25 million people have been at risk of starvation and both sides have been found blocking humanitarian aid to civilians. 

The RSF specifically has blocked aid to the badly affected population in the western region of Darfur and contains mostly Masalit people, a non-Arab ethnic group.

The region previously fell victim to massacres killing roughly 300,000 civilians by Janjaweed militias now comprising the RSF. At the time, Hemedti was head of the Janjaweed and an ally of Sudan’s then-ruling dictator till 2019 Omar al-Bashir. He was found guilty of genocide by the International Criminal Court.

According to a report by the New York Times, a mass grave in Darfur was found in July 2023, containing mostly Masalit bodies, and up to 150,000 people in the city of El Geneina were massacred by the RSF in December of that same year.

While the US specified the RSF is committing genocide, Blinken asserted that “the United States does not support either side of this war.”