US declares RSF genocide in Sudan and sanctions Hemedti

# US declares RSF genocide in Sudan and sanctions Hemedti

*Event date: 2025-01-07*

The Biden administration has determined that Sudan's Rapid Support Forces and their proxies are committing genocide in the country's civil war, escalating the language Washington is using about a conflict that has already killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.

In the same move, the administration imposed sanctions on RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, better known as Hemedti, and on seven RSF-owned companies in the United Arab Emirates. The action came as the war between the RSF and Sudan's military entered another grim stage, with the United States saying the group's conduct had gone beyond the war crimes and ethnic cleansing determination it made in December 2023.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the decision was based on more recent reporting and on a continued pattern of attacks on civilians. The AP report says he accused the RSF and allied militias of systematically murdering men and boys, including infants, on an ethnic basis and of targeting women and girls from certain communities for rape and other forms of sexual violence. It also says he described the blocking of fleeing civilians and the denial of lifesaving supplies.

The administration's decision is important for two reasons. First, it is a formal public statement from Washington that the violence in Sudan has reached a genocidal threshold in the government's view. Second, it brings a sanctions package alongside that determination, aiming pressure directly at the RSF leadership and the business networks around it.

The AP report says the Treasury Department designated Hemedti and companies tied to the RSF, including one handling gold that may have been smuggled out of Sudan. That detail reinforces the extent to which the conflict is not only military but also financial, with revenue streams and commercial links becoming part of the war effort.

The report also notes that the United Arab Emirates has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF, something Emirati officials deny. The article does not resolve that accusation, and neither does the evidence packet. What it does show is that the United States is willing to call the RSF's campaign genocide while continuing to stress accountability rather than choosing a side in the war.

Blinken said the determination was not meant to support either faction, but to promote accountability for atrocities. That framing matters because it signals a legal and diplomatic message even though the genocide finding itself carries no automatic legal effect. The move is therefore both symbolic and practical: symbolic because it is the strongest public language Washington has used, and practical because it accompanies sanctions meant to constrain the group.

The civil war in Sudan began in April 2023 and has become, by the AP report's account, the world's biggest current humanitarian catastrophe. That context is essential. The genocide determination does not end the war, but it raises the political cost of ignoring it and puts renewed pressure on actors who may be able to influence the fighting or its financing.

For families already trapped by the conflict, the significance lies less in Washington's legal phrasing than in whether it changes conditions on the ground. The source does not say that it will. It does, however, make clear that the United States now formally regards the RSF's conduct as genocide and is acting on that conclusion with sanctions.