Independent investigators appointed by the United Nations have accused Sudan's warring parties of driving the country into a humanitarian abyss by flagrantly disregarding basic human rights and international humanitarian law. The three-member International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan presented its first oral update to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The investigators told the Council that the warring parties' lack of concern for the suffering of millions of Sudanese civilians has resulted in killings, looting, mass displacement, rape and other forms of sexual violence, “and resulted in a grave humanitarian crisis.” They accused the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of preventing humanitarian aid from reaching millions of people who are at risk of famine.
RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has been locked in an armed power struggle with SAF General Abdel-Fattah Burhan for the past 14 months. The fighting has spread from Sudan's capital, Khartoum, to other parts of the country, leaving more than 9.6 million displaced and some 25 million in dire need of humanitarian aid, including food, shelter and medical care.
Citing the World Food Programme (WFP), the investigators warned that around 18 million people deprived of sufficient food will face acute hunger, with 5 million on the brink of starvation.
The UN reports that rampant violations and abuses, along with the deprivation of essential lifesaving aid, have led to the mass displacement of more than 7.4 million people inside Sudan, as well as to more than 2.1 million people fleeing to neighboring countries within a span of 14 months.
Since the conflict began in April 2023, other armed groups have sprung up to support the two main military forces. Fact-finding mission chair Mohamed Chande Othman said the deadly conflict “now involves multiple actors within and outside Sudan and has spread from Khartoum and Darfur to most of the country.”
“We are deeply concerned that the fighting persists with tragic consequences and enormous suffering of the civilian population,” he said.
“We have received credible accounts of indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects, including through airstrikes and shelling in heavily populated residential areas, as well as ground attacks against civilians in their homes and villages,” he said.
He added that in the capital, Khartoum, and in nearby towns, killings, looting and sexual violence have “forced many to leave their homes and property to seek refuge in other locations.”
The investigators expressed particular concern about the situation in the Darfur region, especially the siege of the city of El Fasher, the last stronghold of the SAF, where 1.5 million people including 800,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) are in great danger.
“Already, heavy fighting between the warring parties in different parts of the city has led to significant civilian casualties, damaged homes and caused mass displacement,” Othman said.
“The attack on one of the main and last functioning hospitals in the city on June 8 led to its closure, leaving the civilian population without access to lifesaving medical care.”
The fact-finding mission said it is investigating earlier large-scale attacks against civilians based on their ethnicity in other areas of Darfur. These, said Othman, “have included killings, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, forced displacement and looting.”
The investigators said they also have received credible reports of rampant sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, and that they are investigating reports “of sexual slavery and sexualized torture in detention facilities, including against men and boys.”
Othman said the mission has received worrying reports about the “widespread recruitment and use of children at checkpoints to gather intelligence, as well as to participate in direct combat and commit violent crimes,” thereby putting the lives and future of many children at risk.
The fact-finding mission to Sudan is calling for an immediate cease-fire, without which, it said, "it is hard to see the human rights and humanitarian situation in Sudan improving.”
Following the presentation of the report, Yassir Bashir Elbukhari Suliman, the chief prosecutor of Sudan, spoke as the representative of the concerned country. He accused the RSF of multiple crimes and atrocities against unarmed civilians, without assigning any blame to the SAF for the commission of similar acts.
A report published last week from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on children and armed conflict ranks Sudan among the countries with the highest number of “grave violations against children” in the world.
Commanders of the RSF and the SAF have previously denied committing war crimes as they battle for control of the country. Commenting on the situation in Sudan last month, Guterres accused both warring factions of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Meanwhile, the situation on the ground in the North Darfur capital of El Fasher remains dire. The RSF has surrounded the city, burning and looting communities in its vicinity. They have advanced on the city, where an SAF infantry division is outnumbered and surrounded.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says El Fasher is presently the epicenter of Sudan's humanitarian nightmare.
"Amid unrelenting violence and suffering, the lives of 800,000 people — of women, children, men, the elderly and people with disabilities — these lives hang in the balance," Edem Wosornu, OCHA's director of Operations and Advocacy, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Without immediate decisive action, she said, the international community risks bearing witness to a repeat of the well-documented atrocities perpetrated in West Darfur's capital, El Geneina, when the city fell to RSF troops last year.
Human rights groups say thousands of people, mostly ethnic Masalit and members of other non-Arab communities, were massacred by the RSF, even after the city fell to the paramilitary. Today's RSF has elements of the Arab Janjaweed fighters who carried out the genocide against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s.
Last week, the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding the RSF halt its siege and de-escalate the fight for El Fasher and that both sides allow aid in. The resolution has so far been ignored.
Wosornu warned that in addition to the direct toll on civilians, the conflict is also deepening humanitarian needs across the country, where famine is imminent.
“Over 2 million people in 41 hunger hotspots are at high risk of slipping into catastrophic hunger in the coming weeks. Women report having to watch their children starve because they cannot feed them,” she said.
On Wednesday, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that without concerted peace efforts, many more people will flee the brutal war in Sudan and into neighboring countries.
Grandi today concluded his second visit to Sudan since the outbreak of war last year, where he visited refugee camps and displacement centers in Sudan’s White Nile State.
"The level of suffering is truly unconscionable," he said in a statement.
“Sudan is the definition of a perfect storm: shocking human rights atrocities, with millions uprooted by this insane war and other wars that came before it. A terrible famine is looming, and severe floods will soon hamper aid deliveries even more. We are losing a generation to this war, yet peace efforts are not working.”
Grandi also expressed deep alarm at the scale of the humanitarian emergency.
“Civilians did not start this war, yet they pay the price for it. We need the warring parties to stop targeting them, and to immediately facilitate humanitarian access to communities that require life-saving aid,” the High Commissioner said.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: Statement by Mohamed Chande Othman, Chair of the Fact-Finding Mission, at the 56th session of the UN Human Rights Council, released June 18, 2024
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/ffm-sudan/2024-06-18-Oral-Update.pdf
Full text: Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy, OCHA, briefing to the UN Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Sudan, released June 18, 2024
https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/ms-edem-wosornu-director-operations-and-advocacy-unocha-remarks-behalf-usg-humanitarian-affairs-and-erc-mr-martin-griffiths-briefing-security-council-humanitarian-situation-sudan-18-june-2024
Full text: UNHCR’s Grandi warns Sudan carnage will force millions more to flee, UNHCR press release, publsiehd June 19, 2024
https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/unhcr-s-grandi-warns-sudan-carnage-will-force-millions-more-flee