WASHINGTON, US
The United States on Monday offered a reward of up to $5 million for the arrest of a former Sudanese official sought over alleged Darfur war crimes who escaped prison, as charges grow of new atrocities.
Ahmed Harun, a former top aide
to deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, is wanted by the International Criminal
Court (ICC) for helping form the notorious Janjaweed militia which carried out
a scorched-earth campaign in Darfur in the 2000s.
Harun announced in April that
he and other former regime officials escaped Khartoum's Kober prison days after
fighting broke out between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support
Forces.
The United States pointed out
that the Janjaweed has evolved into the Rapid Support Forces, which is accused
of ethnic-based attacks against the non-Arab population in western Sudan.
"Lasting peace in Sudan
requires justice for victims and accountability for those responsible for human
rights abuses and violations, both past and present," State Departments
spokesman Matthew Miller said.
"There is a clear and
direct connection between impunity for abuses under the Bashir regime,
including those of which Harun is accused, and the violence in Darfur
today," he said.
Secretary of State Antony
Blinken has accused the Rapid Support Forces of crimes against humanity and
ethnic cleansing in the latest bloodshed.
Addressing the UN Security
Council on Monday, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said it was his "clear
assessment" that both sides were carrying out crimes in Darfur.
He said the ICC has not
received a single "scrap of paper" from Sudan's armed forces in
response to requests to send in investigators.
Many in Darfur are right to
fear that their situation "will be the forgotten atrocity," he said.
"If it does, it will be
the second time the people of Darfur have been failed. Humanity at large
failed, and we must not collectively allow that to happen, Khan told the
Council by video link.
The United States has worked
with Saudi Arabia to broker a peace agreement between the dueling generals but
to little avail.
The war has killed at least
13,000 people, according to a conservative estimate by the Conflict Location
and Event Data project, and displaced more than seven million people, according
to the UN.
The ICC has sought Harun since
2007 over 20 counts of crimes against humanity and 22 counts of war crimes. In
2009, Bashir became the first sitting head of state indicted by the Hague-based
court, but Sudan has not handed him over.
The reward by the United
States -- which itself is not party to the court -- is offered for information
that leads to Harun's arrest, transfer or conviction.
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