The United Nations Security Council has condemned reported atrocities committed by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El Fasher following the paramilitary group’s takeover of the city last weekend, according to a Guardian report.
An emergency session of the Security Council was convened in New York on Thursday by the UK after widespread reports of ethnically targeted killings in the Sudanese city.
“The situation is simply horrifying,” Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, UN Assistant Secretary General for Africa, told the meeting. “In the past week, the UN human rights office has documented widespread and serious human rights violations in and around El Fasher”.
Pobee cited “credible reports of mass killings in various locations and summary executions during house-to-house searches and as civilians have tried to flee the city”.
Communications have been cut off in the city, creating a chaotic situation that makes it difficult to estimate the number of civilian casualties, Pobee added. She also noted that “external support is enabling the conflict” with “weapons and fighters” continuing to flow into Sudan.
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the meeting that El Fasher “has descended into an even darker hell”.
He condemned the reported killing of nearly 500 people at the Saudi maternity hospital and described how tens of thousands were fleeing to Tawila, where civilians faced extortion, violence and abduction.
The Security Council issued a statement saying recent developments in El Fasher had a “devastating impact on the civilian population” and condemned “reported atrocities being perpetrated by the RSF against the civilian population, including summary executions and arbitrary detentions”.
The session was potentially uncomfortable for the United Arab Emirates, identified as the RSF’s key external backer, though diplomatic calls for the UN to recognise a responsibility to protect people from deliberate genocide were limited.
In the UK, Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty told MPs that reports of mass atrocities in El Fasher were “both horrifying and deeply alarming”.
The UAE has repeatedly denied allegations it provides military support to the RSF. On Thursday, the country stated, “We categorically reject any claims of providing any form of support to either warring party since the onset of the civil war, and condemn atrocities committed by both Port Sudan Authority and the RSF”.
Human Rights Watch has called for targeted sanctions on UAE leadership, while US Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen called on fellow senators to pass his bill banning US arms sales to the UAE.
(information from The Guardian)
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