ABD
ELRAZEG ADAM MOHAMMED

Background and Work

Abd Elrazeg Adam Mohammed was a human rights monitor in West Darfur, a region that had experienced chronic violence, displacement, and impunity for two decades. He worked with the Darfur Network of Monitors, a decentralised group that tracked violations in areas where formal civil-society structures had collapsed or been suppressed. The network documented attacks on displaced-persons camps, sexual violence, forced displacement, and killings by state and non-state armed groups.

He was also active in a local resistance committee. These neighbourhood-based committees emerged during the 2018–2019 revolution that toppled Omar al-Bashir and continued to function after the October 2021 military coup. In Darfur, the committees provided mutual aid, organised protests, and maintained records of abuses. Many resistance-committee members in West Darfur were from communities that had been displaced by earlier campaigns of violence.

Abd Elrazeg lived in El Geneina with his family. The city had seen repeated outbreaks of violence between 2019 and 2023, often involving the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group whose units in Darfur were drawn from the Janjaweed militias responsible for mass atrocities in the 2003–2004 genocide. The RSF controlled most of West Darfur's territory and had attacked the Krinding camp for displaced persons multiple times, including major assaults in January 2021 and April 2022.

The 2023 War and Escalation in West Darfur

On 15 April 2023, fighting broke out in Khartoum between the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF. The conflict rapidly spread to Darfur, where RSF units and allied Arab militias launched coordinated attacks on towns and displacement camps. El Geneina became a site of intense violence. Witnesses reported mass killings, systematic sexual violence, and the burning of entire neighbourhoods.

Human rights monitors and lawyers who had documented RSF crimes were at acute risk. In May 2023, the Darfur Bar Association announced that several of its members had received death threats from militia members. Despite the threats, monitors including Abd Elrazeg continued to gather evidence and report on attacks.

On 11 May 2023, the warring parties signed the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan, which recognised obligations under international humanitarian law and committed both sides to facilitate humanitarian access. Neither party adhered to the agreement. In West Darfur, attacks on civilians intensified through May and June.

The Killings in El Geneina

On 17 June 2023, Abd Elrazeg Adam Mohammed was killed in El Geneina along with his parents and four brothers. The killings occurred during a coordinated wave of attacks on civilian homes. Multiple sources described the violence as systematic and ethnically targeted, with armed groups going house to house.

The following day, 18 June 2023, two prominent human rights lawyers were killed in the city. Tareg Hassan Yagoub Elmalik, a founding member of the Darfur Bar Association and a member of the steering committee of the Sudanese Bar Association, was killed at his home. El Sadeg Mohammed Ahmed Haroun, another lawyer with the Darfur Bar Association and part of a legal team that had filed cases accusing the RSF of atrocities at Krinding camp, was also killed.

The three killings were part of a broader pattern. In the weeks surrounding their deaths, at least three other human rights defenders were killed in El Geneina: Mohammed Ahmed Kudia, Khamis Arabab, and Khidir Sulieman Abdelmageed. The targeting of monitors, lawyers, and committee members appeared deliberate.

Context and Implications

The killings took place against the backdrop of mass atrocities in West Darfur. By mid-2023, thousands of civilians had been killed in El Geneina and surrounding areas, and tens of thousands had fled into Chad. UN officials and human rights organisations described the violence as ethnic cleansing. Monitors and witnesses were among the few who could document the scale and systematic nature of the attacks.

The elimination of local monitors and lawyers removed crucial sources of documentation. The Darfur Network of Monitors had provided real-time reporting from areas inaccessible to international observers. The Darfur Bar Association had been one of the few institutions capable of pursuing legal accountability. With their members threatened, killed, or forced into hiding, the capacity to document and report on abuses in West Darfur was severely diminished.

Abd Elrazeg Adam Mohammed was twenty-eight years old. He leaves behind a record of documentation and a community that depended on his work. His death, together with those of the other defenders killed in June 2023, represents a targeted campaign to eliminate those who bore witness to crimes in West Darfur.