US declares genocide in Sudan. Critics say Biden acted too late.

The U.S. charged Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and his Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary-turned-rebel-group largely composed of ethnic Arabs, of targeting Black communities, killing men and boys and raping women and girls.

The war has laid waste to cities, collapsed the country’s health system and sparked a famine. Yet, the RSF’s critics say Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Biden administration, which this week imposed stiff financial sanctions on Dagalo, an associate and seven RSF-linked companies, were too slow to act to stave off what the U.S. says now is the world’s biggest humanitarian catastrophe.

“While the sanctions might have a political impact, their practical effect on the RSF’s operations will likely be minimal," said Mohamed Salem, a Sudanese human-rights activist. Salem predicted the sanctions would do little to stop the covert flow of weapons that allows the militia to keep fighting its former ally, the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Alsadiq Ali Alnoor, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Army Movement, the pro-government militia controlled by the governor of the Darfur region, accused the Biden administration of “failing to take decisive, courageous measures to save the Sudanese people."

Darfur, in western Sudan, has borne the brunt of the RSF’s attacks on civilians, a campaign the U.S. has described as ethnic cleansing.

The genocide designation will draw scrutiny to the RSF’s backers, such as the United Arab Emirates, and hamper its efforts to enlist international assistance, analysts said.

Alnoor welcomed the designation, but urged the U.S. to brand the RSF a terrorist organization, as well. “Issuing such a designation would significantly restrict the movement of militia leaders globally, reducing the flow of funds and weapons to their forces," he said.

The RSF emerged from the notorious Janjaweed militias that rampaged through Darfur in the early 2000s, leaving an estimated 200,000 dead, according to the United Nations. The actions led the International Criminal Court to charge Sudan’s president at the time, Omar al-Bashir, with genocide for dispatching the RSF to help his army suppress a rebellion in Darfur.

In 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled the Darfur violence as genocide, blaming the Janjaweed and the Bashir government. The U.N. and African Union dispatched peacekeepers, and the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo, which Bashir violated by bringing in weapons from China and Russia.

The RSF’s commander, Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, turned on Bashir and aided in his overthrow in 2019. In 2021, Dagalo became the No. 2 in Sudan’s ruling military junta. He and the country’s military leader, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had a falling-out in 2023, igniting a war that shows no signs of coming to an end.

For more than a year, the Biden administration resisted pressure, including from Capitol Hill, to declare RSF responsible for genocide. Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a resolution in 2024 calling the situation in Sudan a genocide and demanding sanctions against Dagalo and affiliated militias.

“The administration’s neglect and reticence to take meaningful action regarding one of the world’s worst conflicts has undoubtedly hurt America’s standing across Africa and the world," Risch said this week.

U.S. officials last year pointed to estimates that as many as 150,000 had been killed in the conflict at that point, but usually cite tens of thousands of deaths.

Blinken defended the administration’s record on Sudan this week. “The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities," Blinken said.

The U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, said the genocide designation required a careful review of the facts and the law. He said the U.S. has already sanctioned RSF leaders and determined in 2023 that both sides in the conflict were guilty of war crimes.

“The genocide determination reflect a consistent effort to document and call out atrocities, acknowledge the suffering of victims and survivors, and pursue justice and accountability," he said.

The RSF denied any role in ethnic attacks and genocide, describing the State Department designation as inaccurate and selective. “The decisions made [Tuesday] by the outgoing administration are, by all measures, regrettable and unjust," the RSF said.

Donald Trump has yet to announce his Africa team or signal what shape his Sudan policy might take. The war started after he finished his first term in office.

Tibor Nagy, who headed State Department Africa policy during the first Trump administration, said the president-elect’s personal ties to leaders of the U.A.E. and Egypt could put him in a strong position to ask them to force a cease-fire on their Sudanese allies. Egypt backs the Sudanese military, while the U.A.E. supports the RSF.

But, Nagy said, Africa is unlikely to be on Trump’s to-do list from day one, and it might take time for the Africa specialists to get his attention.

“Trump is in a position to forge an elite deal among the foreign backers of this war as a means of forging a wider Middle East peace, which is his ultimate objective," said Cameron Hudson, a former State Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

The Biden administration has, behind the scenes, been pressuring the U.A.E., a U.S. ally, to stop arming the RSF.

Chad, Sudan’s neighbor, also backs the RSF. Iran, like Egypt, supports the ruling military government. Russia, which has sought a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, has hedged its bets and aided both sides at times.

Both sides in the conflict have contributed to civilian deaths. The Sudanese military has been accused of bombing civilian settlements and blocking aid deliveries to RSF-held areas.

But the RSF, according to the U.S., has in particular aimed its violence against non-Arab Black Sudanese in Darfur.

Soon after the RSF captured the West Darfur city of El Geneina early in the war, a militia spokesman predicted the rebel victory would restore peace to its inhabitants.

But the following day, RSF fighters riding on motorcycles and in Toyota pickups mounted with machine guns drove into a settlement outside the city, where they executed as many as 2,000 people, mainly men and boys, according to witnesses, local human-rights groups and international aid agencies. The victims, many of them rounded up and shot, belonged to the Masalit, a Black community in the region.

Both the Sudanese army and the RSF last year obstructed the delivery of aid supplies to Zamzam camp, home to a half million displaced people, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders. The RSF maintained the blockade for several weeks, even after famine was declared in the camp in August.

Elaf Mohamed is among the three million Sudanese who have fled the country since the fighting began. The 29-year-old was working as a doctor when she was shot in the leg at a hospital last year. She has since fled to Uganda and registered as a refugee.

She said the U.S. decision would help bring accountability for those who have committed atrocities but wouldn’t bring an end to the war. “The only positive aspect is that the world now knows that genocide has occurred and is still being committed in Sudan," she said.

Mohamed Zakaria in Kampala, Uganda, contributed to this article.