International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda arrived in Khartoum on Saturday, heading a team of ICC investigators.
She announced she would visit Darfur to hear the testimonies of war victims.
In joint press statements following her meeting with Governor of the Darfur Region Menni Arko Menawi, Bensouda said the ICC has already begun probing war crimes and genocide cases.
She said she will leave but her team will stay and work on enforcing the law.
During her one-week visit, Bensouda will hold meetings with senior officials in the country’s transitional government.
This is her second trip to Sudan in 2021.
She stressed that her visit to Darfur will give her and her team the chance to identify the actual state of the victims, praising their pursuit of justice and holding criminals accountable.
Menawi, for his part, stressed that all those accused of crimes against humanity should be handed over, headed by ousted president Omar al-Bashir and Ahmed Haroun, former head of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
In February 2020, the Sudanese government and armed factions agreed during peace talks on the importance of bringing war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court.
Last week, Ali Mohammed Ali Abdul Rahman Ali, known as Ali Kushayb, was charged with a total of 31 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes dating back to the Darfur conflict in 2003 and 2004 including murder, rape, torture and persecution.
In February, Sudan’s justice minister met with ICC officials in Khartoum to discuss cooperation with the tribunal in the trials related to the Darfur conflict, which claimed over 300,000 lives and displaced 2.5 million people.
Bashir, who is facing ICC charges of orchestrating genocide and other atrocities in Darfur, was deposed in 2019 and remains in prison in Khartoum.
He was convicted of money laundering and corruption. He is also on trial for the Islamist-backed 1989 military coup that brought him to power.
