Today, in an emergency session of the Human Rights Council, the United Nations tasked the UN Fact Finding Mission (FFM) on Sudan and the UN OHCHR with carrying out an inquiry and reporting on mass atrocities taking place in El-Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In opening remarks the head of the UN FFM highlighted mass gang rapes, killings and other atrocities, and called for states who “back, arm and finance” these acts to end such support, and for those responsible to be held accountable. Piles of bodies and blood-soaked ground have been seen through satellite imagery of El-Fasher in what some humanitarian groups have begun to call a genocide.
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) welcomed the holding of the special session but warned that atrocities in Sudan will continue to spread unless individuals and groups from all warring parties committing crimes are held to account, and external support for these actors comes to an end. In this regard, CIHRS is deeply concerned that the resolution adopted at the Special Session fails to clearly increase the investigative capacities of the UN FFM on Sudan, and avoids identifying or holding to account the UAE and other governments providing support and weapons to those carrying out atrocities.
Speaking before the Human Rights Council on behalf of CIHRS and the Sudanese Human Rights Monitor (SHRM), Magdi El Na’im, said, “The people of El Fasher are enduring an unspeakable horror, a systematic campaign of extermination marked by ethnically targeted massacres, widespread sexual violence, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances following prolonged starvation, and relentless extra-judicial killings, drone attacks and shelling.” Mr. Na’im warned that “similar sieges are now mirrored in El Obeid, Kadugli, Babnousa, and Dalanj, threatening the same catastrophic consequences” and called for the “regional enablers” of these crimes to also be held accountable.
Evidence has revealed that weapons and equipment coming from Serbia, Russia, China, Türkiye, Yemen, UK, and UAE, as well as French military technology, are being used in Sudan, with the UAE acting as the primary gateway to smuggle weapons and funds into Sudan to the RSF. Meanwhile, Egypt, Türkiye and other states have increased military support for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), who have also been accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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