The follow-up to the historic visit to Sudan by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda. This Tuesday, June 1, she was in Darfur, where she visited the province’s largest camp and met the new governor Minni Minawi. Thousands of displaced people warmly welcomed him.
There were many people by the side of the road, under the sun, on Tuesday, to see Fatou Bensouda’s vehicle convoy pass by. Thousands of women in colorful dresses and men in white djellabah gave him a welcome worthy of a head of state.
As she had done on Sunday in North Darfur, the prosecutor and community leaders in the Kalma camp then attended a question-and-answer session with the displaced, who live more than 100,000 in this makeshift city, hastily gathered in the dust nearly twenty years ago. Fatou Bensouda told them that the ultimate goal of her office, even after she left, was “justice for the horrific crimes committed in Darfur”.
Then Fatou Bensouda met Minni Minawi, the former rebel leader recently appointed governor of the province, after seeing Wali in southern Darfur Moussa Mahdi. Both have promised to help ICC investigators, who are soon expected in Darfur, bring forward several cases brought against the leaders of Omar Al-Bashir’s former regime.
“I am here to listen to the authorities and the victims, and not to investigate,” Fatou Bensouda recalled. In front of Minni Minawi, she expressed her “admiration” for Darfuris, for their “courage”, their “resilience” and their “thirst for justice”.
Fatou Bensouda’s visit to Sudan is expected to last a week and end next weekend.
►Read also: Sudan: Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court visited Darfur
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