Kigali : the AU warns of the risk of genocide in the DRC and Sudan

The African Union Special Envoy for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities has just concluded his visit to Rwanda. Adama Dieng took the opportunity to warn of the signs that suggest crimes of genocide in several African countries including the DRC and Sudan. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Adama Dieng, who is on a tour of East and Central Africa, was first received in audience by Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
According to him, the African Union has made some efforts to respond to crises on the continent, if we compare it to its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

However, Adama Dieng points out that if nothing is done, we could witness other cases of genocide like the one committed against the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in 1994.

“Today, on the continent we have hotbeds of tension that we have an imperative duty to put an end to…”, the Senegalese diplomat insisted vigorously before the press after the audience at the Rwandan presidency.

For him, the AU’s response to the current crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan has been a particular test. While the appointment of a special envoy for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities is a step in the right direction, it is not enough, he said.

“What we see today for example in Sudan with extremely serious crimes including the suicide of more than 150 women simply to avoid being raped,…. The East of the DRC which is the scene of mass atrocities and nameless crimes… should challenge everyone,” he said.

“We do not have the right to remain silent. We must first and foremost denounce these atrocities and we must at the same time develop all the means at our disposal to avoid the worst because even while the genocide is continuing, there is still space for prevention. And this is the message that I will carry across this continent,” said Adama Dieng, at the start of his tour, Monday, November 11 in Kigali, Rwanda.

On his agenda, he will also have to visit these countries in conflict.

Mr. Dieng’s regional tour comes about six months after his appointment by the President of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat.

Adama Dieng indeed recalled the ultimate objective of his appointment: “to avoid a repetition of the inaction observed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda”.
Mr. Faki made the same announcement last April in Kigali during the 30th commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in the land of a thousand hills.

The Senegalese lawyer is a former Under-Se
cretary-General of the United Nations and Special
Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, a position he held from July 2012 to July 2020.