Peacekeepers should be deployed to Sudan immediately and an existing international arms embargo should be expanded to protect civilians from “harrowing” rights abuses committed by the warring parties in the country’s civil war, UN experts said on Friday.
Sudan’s army (SAF) and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces [RSF], have raped and attacked civilians, used torture and made arbitrary arrests, according to a UN-mandated fact-finding mission based on 182 interviews with survivors, relatives and witnesses. The violations “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”, its report said.
The independent experts said they had also found evidence of “indiscriminate” airstrikes and shelling against civilian targets including schools, hospitals and facilities for water and electricity supply.
“The gravity of our findings and failure of the warring parties to protect civilians underscores the need for urgent and immediate intervention,” the UN fact-finding mission’s chair, Mohamed Chande Othman, told reporters.
The mission also called for the expansion of an existing UN arms embargo which applies only to the western region of Darfur, where thousands of ethnic killings have been reported.
“It is imperative that an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians be deployed without delay,” Othman said, adding that there were different options including a UN-mandated force or a regional one backed by the African Union.
The latest claims come on top of previous allegations that the RSF and its allies have been responsible for series of massacres and ethnic cleansing in West Darfur and Al Jazirah state leading to the deaths of between 10,000 and 15,000 people.
Mission member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo said unnamed support groups had received reports of more than 400 rapes in the first year of the war, but the real number was probably much higher. “The rare brutality of this war will have a devastating and long-lasting psychological impact on children,” she said.
The fact-finding team said it had tried to contact Sudanese government authorities on multiple occasions as part of its work, but received no answer. It said the RSF had asked to cooperate with the mission, without elaborating.
The Guardian has approached the Sudanese embassy in London for comment.
The report, based on interviews with survivors, witnesses and other sources now in Chad, Kenya and Uganda, emerged after two weeks of inconclusive US-brokered peace efforts in Geneva. The talks were attended by the RSF but not the SAF.
There was minimal progress towards a cessation of hostilities during the talks, though there was an announcement of a mechanism called Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan, which aims to expand access to humanitarian routes.
Observers have been issuing warnings in recent weeks about the deteriorating hunger situation in Sudan.
Maximo Torero, chief economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization, a UN agency, said on Thursday: “The conflict continues to drive a rapid deterioration of food security, with about 26% more people estimated to face high levels of acute food insecurity during the June to September lead period compared to June last year, reaching 25.6 million people classified in crisis or worse.”
The war began in April last year, pitting the national army led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the RSF led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – also known as Hemedti.
The fighting began in the capital, Khartoum, but has since spread to 14 of the country’s 18 states. Thousands of people have been killed, 8 million have been displaced internally, and a further 2 million have fled to neighbouring countries.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report
