Recent days have seen some of the most extreme atrocities, including sexual violence and indiscriminate killings, since the war in Sudan began last year, the United Nations Security Council was told in a high-level briefing this week.
“I am speaking to you with agony and urgency,” Niemat Ahmadi, head of the Darfur Women Action Group, told the Security Council on Tuesday.
Ahmadi said that “scorched earth tactics” had been deployed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in North Darfur’s al-Fasher, al-Gezira state and several other regions, including through indiscriminate targeting of civilians and abuse of women and girls.
Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN’s under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, said the RSF had committed mass killings of civilians and forced many to flee al-Gezira, an agricultural state between the Blue Nile and White Nile, in the past two weeks.
“We are receiving reports of horrific violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including sexual violence committed predominantly against women and girls,” Dicarlo added.
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Ahmadi said that there had been shocking reports of over 130 women committing mass suicide as a way to escape further sexual violence.
Ramesh Rajasingham, of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that sexual violence in al-Gezira against women and girls had become “a sickening hallmark of this conflict”.
‘A no-fly zone would be a genocidal act, it would cause a massacre’
– Sudanese foreign office official
The RSF and the Sudanese army have been at war since April last year, in a conflict that has killed thousands of people and displaced 11 million, a third of whom have fled abroad.
In late October, over 100 people were killed after the RSF – which is heavily backed by the United Arab Emirates – launched a string of brutal attacks in al-Gezira, following the defection of a top commander.
Abu Aqla Keikal, a senior RSF commander based in Gezira, defected and handed himself over to the Sudanese army a month ago.
The army subsequently pardoned Keikal for atrocities committed under his command. Since then, the RSF has carried out devastating reprisal attacks across the state.
No-fly zone proposal
The Security Council briefing involved discussions about the prospect of UN peacekeeping forces being deployed to Sudan in an attempt to protect civilians.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has so far rejected the option, stating that the required “conditions do not exist” for such a deployment.
“I beg to differ,” said Ahmadi, calling on the UN to create an enabling environment for peace, where belligerents are unwilling to do so.
Earlier this month, Abdalla Hamdok, a former Sudanese prime minister, called for the Security Council to create safe zones for civilians in Sudan supported by peacekeeping forces.
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During a visit to the UK, Hamdok urged Britain, which is currently president of the Security Council and the UN pen holder for Sudan, to lead such efforts. He said he was “very much disappointed” by Guterres’ stance.
“We have to think about enforcing a no-fly zone and having safe zones inside the country, even to the point where we should boldly talk about bringing boots on the ground to protect the civilians,” Hamdok said during an event at Chatham House in London.
Hamdok headed up a short-lived civilian-led government following the overthrow of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
He was overthrown in a military coup two years later led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the RSF better known as Hemeti.
However he is now perceived by many Sudanese as supportive of Hemeti and close to his sponsor, the UAE.
The call for a no-fly zone was echoed by the UK’s Liberal Democrat party, whose leader Ed Davey urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to help make such an intervention “to stop Iranian drones”.
A senior Sudanese foreign office official told Middle East Eye that a no-fly zone would be “a genocidal act”.
“The Sudanese Armed Forces can only protect civilians in al-Fasher and al-Gezira with its air force. A no-fly zone would be a genocidal act, it would cause a massacre,” the official said.
The Sudanese army has maintained supremacy in the skies during the war, including through the reported use of Iranian drones.
While the RSF has no air force, it has reportedly used UAE-supplied Serbian-made attack drones.
External allies ‘enabling slaughter’
The foreign office official cast doubt on the proposal to deploy UN peacekeeping forces.
“Who would the international force be protecting civilians from? When people flee the RSF they go to areas held by the army,” they said, adding that the paramilitaries were committing “acts of terror that can be compared to Boko Haram and the Islamic State”.
A joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force was deployed in the sprawling western region of Darfur between 2007-2020 in response to a conflict that was driven by militias that eventually became the RSF.
‘To put it bluntly, certain purported allies of the parties are enabling the slaughter in Sudan. This is unconscionable, it is illegal and it must end’
– Rosemary DiCarlo, UN under-secretary-general
The militias, known as the Janjaweed, were deployed by Bashir’s government to fight Darfuri rebels who rose up against marginalisation and deprivation, with the conflict being drawn along ethnic lines and leaving 300,000 people dead.
“The previous UN mission in Darfur spent a lot of money but needed the army to protect it,” the Sudanese official said.
Meanwhile, Darfur Governor Minni Minawi, a former rebel leader, has accused UN agencies of aiding the RSF by ignoring abuses and allegedly diverting aid to the group.
He alleged that RSF fighters had looted aid trucks belonging to Unicef, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organisation with impunity.
A UN representative defended its agencies, stating that they were committed to international law and were focused on delivering aid in the face of security risks and damaged infrastructure.
During the Security Council talks, Russia’s representative said it was not appropriate to talk of UN or African peacekeepers without negotiations taking place with the involvement of the Sudanese government.
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The Security Council was almost unanimous in its call for an immediate ceasefire.
The United States said that all countries must stop providing military support to the warring parties, a view echoed by Japan and Korea. The RSF is heavily backed by the United Arab Emirates.
Several representatives welcomed the UN Security Council’s decision last week to impose sanctions on two RSF generals – the first such sanctions imposed since the war began.
The council is currently discussing a British-drafted resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities and the unhindered delivery of aid across front lines and borders.
DiCarlo laid the blame for the recent uptick in violence on both warring parties, and the “considerable external support” they were receiving.
“To put it bluntly, certain purported allies of the parties are enabling the slaughter in Sudan. This is unconscionable, it is illegal and it must end,” she said.
