UN backs fresh probe into mounting atrocities in Sudan

Reports of mounting atrocities in Sudan's el-Fasher region led to an emergency UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meeting on Friday which backed calls by member states for a fresh, independent investigation into claims of alleged rape, sexual assault, mass killings, executions and forced recruitment into the paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), notes Legalbrief Africa. According to BBC News, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said at the emergency meeting in Geneva: ‘Our wake-up calls were not heeded. Bloodstains on the ground in el-Fasher have been photographed from space. The stain on the record of the international community is less visible, but no less damaging.’ Since the civil war began over two years ago, more than 150 000 people have been killed and about 12m have been forced from their homes. The new investigation is mandated to identify those who ordered and carried out the massacre in el-Fasher and the findings could be shared with the International Criminal Court. While Türk did warn individuals and companies ‘fuelling and profiting’ from Sudan's war, there is disappointment that the mandate makes no mention of other countries sponsoring the conflict. The UAE is accused of shipping weapons to the RSF, while Iran has been accused of supplying some weapons to the Sudanese army. Plus, there is concern that the cash-strapped UN, already finding it hard to sustain its humanitarian work in Sudan, may not have the funds to mount a really credible inquiry.

El-Fasher was captured last month by the RSF following an 18-month siege. It was the last city in Darfur held by the army and its allies. The RSF has been accused of targeting non-Arab groups in the city and elsewhere in Darfur – a claim it has denied, according to BBC News. One gruesome feature of this conflict has been the huge volume of footage and photos of horrific atrocities – often seemingly filmed by the culprits themselves, and circulated online. Researchers say this digital evidence will be analysed in a bid to bring the perpetrators to justice. ‘The people of Sudan, particularly now in el-Fasher, are facing a situation that I never saw before,’ said Mona Rishmawi, a member of the UN's fact-finding mission on Sudan who has seen the change first-hand over more than two decades. The scale of the suffering today in Darfur is greater than the Janjaweed militia's genocide in the same region 20 years ago, she said. The RSF traces its origins back to the Janjaweed. Back then, Rishmawi explained, attacks were mainly on villages but now paramilitaries are targeting whole cities and refugee camps housing hundreds of thousands of people. A joint G7 statement last week condemned surging violence in Sudan, saying the conflict between the army and the RSF had triggered ‘the world's largest humanitarian crisis’.

Full BBC News report

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called for international action to cut off weapons supplies to Sudan's RSF, following reports of mass killings in el-Fasher, reports the Kenyan Star. At the end of a G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Canada, Rubio said the RSF had committed systematic atrocities, including murder, rape and sexual violence against civilians. Sudan's army accuses the UAE of supporting the group with weapons and mercenaries sent via African nations. The UAE has repeatedly denied the allegations. The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army since April 2023, when a power struggle between their leaders erupted into a civil war. At the talks near Niagara Falls, America's top diplomat said women and children had been targeted in acts of the most horrific kind by the RSF in el-Fasher. The Secretary of State rejected the paramilitary group's attempt to blame the killings on rogue elements, saying this was false and the attacks were systematic. He said the US feared that thousands of people who had been expected to flee el-Fasher were either dead or too malnourished to move.

Full report in the Kenyan Star

Just how many people are still trapped in el-Fasher? That’s the burning question for relatives of the many thousands of people believed to still be there, according to the United Nations website. That ordeal reduced people to eating peanut shells and animal feed, Türk said on Friday at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. ‘We warned that the fall of the city to the Rapid Support Forces would result in a bloodbath,’ he said, before calling for immediate international action to stop the violence at a special meeting convened by concerned Member States. ‘All those involved in this conflict should know: we are watching you, and justice must prevail,’ the High Commissioner insisted. According to UNHCR, nearly 100 000 people have fled el-Fasher and villages close by in the past two weeks alone.

‘They are stranded somewhere,’ said the agency’s head of the Sub Office in Port Sudan, Jacqueline Parlevliet. Families arriving in Tawila, about 50km from el-Fasher have recounted ‘unimaginable horrors’ before and after fleeing the city, she said. Briefing journalists in Geneva via video, Parlevliet highlighted widespread reports of rape and sexual violence by escapees and scenes of desperation, reports the UN. ‘Parents are searching for missing children, many traumatised due to conflict and the dangerous journey to reach safety. Unable to pay ransoms, families have lost young male relatives to arrests or forced recruitment into armed groups,’ the UNHCR official explained. Those hoping to find safety away from el-Fasher face ever more dangerous journeys skirting around military checkpoints, some travelling for up to 15 days with limited food and water before reaching shelter in locations including Ad Dabbah in Northern state.

Full UN News report

Chad has become a refuge for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the conflict in Sudan – and, as violence against civilians intensifies in Darfur, even more people are crossing the border. The influx is straining already scarce resources in one of the poorest countries in Africa, reports RFI. Charlotte Slente of the Danish Refugee Council said the escalating humanitarian crisis needs the world's attention. Two and a half years into the war in Sudan, the UN and aid organisations are expecting a wave of new arrivals across the border. El-Fasher lies some 300 km from eastern Chad. But Chad's humanitarian response remains shockingly underfunded, raising profound questions about how the country will cope. ‘The situation in Sudan is that in 2025 the fighting has shifted more towards very densely populated towns, and that has amplified civilian casualties. We see a war with a very expansive use of explosive weapons in very densely populated areas, with high levels of civilian casualties.'

'We see widespread destruction of homes, markets, health facilities, infrastructure, etc. And here in Chad there could be very many new arrivals – thousands and thousands of refugees, but also Chadians that have been living in Sudan for a number of years and now have to return to Chad due to the situation in Sudan.’ Slenter said they were already seeing an increasing number of people arriving, around 50 people per day in the latest weeks, according to RFI. ‘That is a little bit less than expected, because the direct road from el-Fasher to Adre is too insecure to travel through. So many are seeking other entry points into Chad further north, with longer routes, also dangerous. On other border points, we are seeing an increasing number of people arriving and we expect that there will be more people arriving in the coming days, weeks and months.’

Full RFI report