Last week a US judge ruled that French bank, BNP Paribas, must face a lawsuit accusing the bank of helping the Sudanese government commit genocide between 1997 and 2011 by providing banking services that violated American sanctions.
U.S. District Judge in Manhattan, Alvin Hellerstein, found substantial evidence that showed a relationship between BNP Paribas' financing and human rights abuses perpetrated by the government.
The class action lawsuit was brought by U.S. residents who had fled non-Arab indigenous black African communities in South Sudan, Darfur, and the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan.
Hellerstein stated that it is too early to decide whether the bank could be held responsible for causing abuses perpetrated by the Sudanese government. According to plaintiffs, abuses include mass rape, murder, and torture.
The case was originally filed in 2016 but dismissed in 2018. It was revived by a Federal Appeals court in 2019
BNP Paribas has refrained from commenting on the ruling.
Read more on Reuters and Africa News.
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