Sudan’s military-led government has rejected a call from a UN fact-finding mission to deploy an international force to protect civilians from the ongoing civil war in the country.
The conflict, which began in April 2023, has killed thousands and displaced nearly eight million people as fighting continues between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The UN mission reported that both warring parties had committed severe human rights violations against civilians, describing them as “harrowing” acts that could be considered war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Chande Othman, the head of the UN mission, said, “Given the failure of the warring parties to spare civilians, it is imperative that an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians be deployed without delay.”
The UN mission also called for an arms embargo on both sides, revealing that its findings were based on first-hand testimony from 182 survivors, family members, and eyewitnesses.
Sudan’s foreign ministry, loyal to the army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, rejected the UN recommendations entirely, describing the UN Human Rights Council as “a political and illegal body” and labeling the mission’s recommendations as “a flagrant violation of their mandate.”
The ministry added, “The protection of civilians remains an absolute priority for the Sudanese government,” and emphasized that the UN should “support the national process, rather than seek to impose a different exterior mechanism.”
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), called on the global community to take action, stating, “The scale of the emergency is shocking, as is the insufficient action being taken to curtail the conflict and respond to the suffering it is causing.” He spoke during a visit to Port Sudan, which has become the main hub for aid agencies and the new headquarters of the government after being forced out of the capital, Khartoum, by the RSF.
The UN reported that the conflict has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 25 million people facing severe food shortages.
In August, a UN-backed committee of experts declared a famine in a camp housing about 500,000 displaced people near el-Fasher in Darfur, one of the areas most affected by the conflict.
Despite various mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia and the United States, peace talks have failed to bring an end to the conflict.
The Sudanese foreign ministry also rejected the UN experts’ call for an arms embargo, accusing the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, of “systematically targeting civilians and civilian institutions.”
