The Sudanese cabinet has decided to extradite ex-President Omar al-Bashir. He is accused of war crimes and genocide in the Darfur conflict.

The Sudanese government will extradite the country's former president, Omar al-Bashir, and other suspects to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of genocide. That was decided by the Sudanese cabinet, as the state news agency Suna reported, citing Foreign Minister Mariam al-Mahdi.

Mr. Al-Bashir is accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur conflict. An arrest warrant against him for war crimes has been in place since 2009, and another for genocide followed in 2010. At that time, Mr. al-Bashir was still in office - it was not until April 2019 that he was overthrown by the military after months of mass protests. Since then he has been in custody in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. In 2020 he was on trial there for the 1989 coup that brought him to power.

The basis for the charges in The Hague are crimes in the Darfur region. Since 2003, different population groups had protested against al-Bashir's rule there, against which the ruler took action, among other things, by sending the Janjawid militias. According to the UN, 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million people displaced.

Since the breakaway of South Sudan in 2011 and the dispute over oil wells, Sudan has been in an economic crisis, which has also been shaped by US sanctions against Mr. al-Bashir's Islamic government. After Mr. al-Bashir's overthrow, a military council took power, which led to renewed protests. The military later reached an agreement with representatives of the protesters on a sovereign council made up of both military and civilians. Most recently, there was renewed inter-ethnic violence in Darfur. The withdrawal of the UN mission at the end of last year had been criticized.