The year-old war in Sudan between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has sparked a crisis of epic proportions fueled by weapons from foreign supporters who continue to flout UN sanctions aimed at helping end the conflict, the UN political chief has said.
Briefing the 15-member Security Council on the situation in Sudan, Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo said Friday that fighting has spread to other parts of the country, especially urban areas and the western Darfur region.
She then painted a dire picture of the war's impact of over 14,000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, looming famine with 25 million people in need of life-saving assistance, and over 8.6 million forced to flee their homes.
Man-Made Crisis
DiCarlo said that since April 15, 2023, the Sudanese people have endured unbearable suffering.
She mentioned reports of widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, the recruitment of children by parties to the conflict and the extensive use of torture and prolonged arbitrary detention by both parties.
“Thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, and other essential civilian infrastructure have been destroyed. The war has wrecked large swathes of the country’s productive sectors, crippling the economy,” the UN political chief told the Security Council.
In short, DiCarlo described the situation in Sudan as “a crisis of epic proportions. It is also wholly man-made.”
Dire Picture
Echoing that point, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, High Representative for the Silencing the Guns initiative of the African Union Commission, said external interference has been “a major factor” stymying efforts to negotiate a ceasefire and to stop the war.
“External support in terms of supply of war materiel and other means has been the main reason why this war has lasted for so long,” he said via videolink from Post Sudan. “It is the elephant in the room.”
“Yet, the ongoing year-long war has already set Sudan back several decades, he said.
Neither DiCarlo nor Chambas named any of the foreign supporters.
But report said Iran could have sold drones for government forces. Also, the RSF leader, Dagalo, has reportedly received support from Russia's Wagner mercenary group. UN experts said in a recent report that the RSF has also received support from Arab allied communities and new military supply lines running through Chad, Libya and South Sudan.
Al Fasher and Darfur
Edem Wosornu, the UN humanitarian office's director of operations, said, “I find it particularly distressing to see what has happened in Sudan, given where the country was before this conflict started. A safe refuge for more than 1 million refugees. A regional hub for medical facilities and universities. So much of this is now gone.”
Speaking on behalf of UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, she called on all warring parties to uphold their obligations under international law.
“Extremely concerning levels of conflict-related sexual violence continue to be reported, and aid workers, health workers and local volunteers are being killed, injured, harassed and arrested with impunity,” she said.
In addition, the spiraling violence in recent weeks poses an extreme and immediate danger to the 800,000 civilians who reside in El Fasher and risks triggering further clashes in other parts of Darfur, where more than nine million people are in dire need of assistance, she added.
