Category Archives: Sudan

As it meets against backdrop of Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, is UN too broken to be fixed?

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Supporters say UN mediation has prevented even worse outcomes, but security council is stuck in vicious circle

As diplomats from nearly 200 member states gather in New York this week for the United Nations general assembly against the backdrop of a massive Israeli bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, a nagging question to be addressed is whether the UN is too broken to be fixed.

UN officials are facing three intractable conflicts, in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. While it remains one of the most important humanitarian organisations on Earth, organising relief efforts for refugees, natural disaster victims and others in dire need, the UN’s principal security body appears to be powerless to intervene in some of the world’s most grinding conflicts.

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UN chief calls on Sudanese paramilitary leader to end siege of North Darfur city

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António Guterres ‘gravely alarmed’ by RSF assault on al-Fashir as EU foreign policy chief warns of another genocide

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is “gravely alarmed” at reports of a full-scale assault on the Sudanese city of al-Fashir by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and has called on its leader to halt the attack immediately, according to Guterres’ spokesperson.

“It is unconscionable that the warring parties have repeatedly ignored calls for a cessation of hostilities,” Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.

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Sudanese rebels appear to be posting self-incriminating videos of torture and arson on social media

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Footage that seems to show fighters glorifying abuse of prisoners with ‘little fear of consequences’ could be used in war crimes prosecutions

Footage of rebel fighters in Sudan appearing to glorify the burning of homes and the torture of prisoners could be used by international courts to pursue war crime prosecutions, observers have told the Guardian.

Fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, have been accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan for the past year as they try to take control of the country.

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Tens of thousands of artefacts looted from Sudan museum, says official

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Thefts at Khartoum’s National Museum, one of most important in Africa, took place in region controlled by Rapid Support Forces group

Tens of thousands of artefacts have been looted from a Sudanese museum regarded as one of the most important in Africa, an official at the institution has said.

The official at the National Museum in Khartoum said satellite images taken last year showed trucks loaded with artefacts leaving the museum and heading for Sudan’s borders, including that with South Sudan.

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Peacekeepers needed to end ‘harrowing’ abuses in Sudan, say UN experts

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Government and paramilitary forces responsible for rape, violence and torture, according to civilian interviews

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.

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Flood surge in Sudan bursts dam, destroying villages and killing dozens

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One report says 150-200 people missing after heavy rain led to Arbaat dam giving way in area already hit by civil war

Surging waters have burst through a dam in eastern Sudan, wiping out at least 20 villages and leaving at least 30 people dead but probably many more, the UN has said, devastating a region already reeling from months of civil war.

Torrential rains caused floods that on Sunday overwhelmed the Arbaat dam, which is 25 miles (40km) north of Port Sudan, the de facto national capital and base for the government, diplomats, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

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Macklemore cancels Dubai show to protest UAE role in Sudan civil war

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US rapper says he will not perform in United Arab Emirates until it ‘stops arming’ the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, where thousands have been killed

Macklemore has cancelled an upcoming October concert in Dubai over the United Arab Emirates’ role “in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis” in Sudan through its reported support of the paramilitary force that has been fighting government troops there.

The announcement by the US rapper reignited attention to the UAE’s role in the war gripping the African nation. While the UAE repeatedly has denied arming the Rapid Support Forces and supporting its leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, UN experts reported “credible” evidence in January that the Emirates sent weapons to the RSF several times a week from northern Chad.

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At least 68 people killed in flooding as rains worsen Sudan’s plight

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About 27,000 people displaced by heaviest rainfall since 2019 in country already hit by civil war and famine

Heavy rains in Sudan have killed dozens of people, compounding hardship in a country that is already facing multiple crises.

At least 68 people have been killed in Sudan as a result of rains that have plagued different parts of the country this year, the interior ministry said.

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Sudanese factions using starvation as weapon is ‘cowardice’, US envoy says

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Tom Perriello condemns tactics of Rapid Support Forces and Sudanese military before peace talks in Geneva

The US special envoy for Sudan has accused the two factions in the country’s civil war of “cowardice” before crucial peace talks that are due to start on Wednesday.

Tom Perriello told the Guardian that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese military “lacked courage and honour” because of their continued use of starvation as a weapon.

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Children ‘at death’s door’ as famine declared in Sudanese refugee camp

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UN-backed early warning network confirms people in the Darfur city of El Fasher are starving to death

Famine has been declared in a Sudanese displacement camp in the besieged city of El Fasher.

About 600,000 people are estimated to be living in camps just outside the capital of North Darfur.

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Girls as young as nine gang-raped by paramilitaries in Sudan – report

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Human Rights Watch accuses RSF militia of ‘countless’ cases of rape and torture in Khartoum in 15-month civil war

Gunmen from a notorious militia roamed Sudan’s capital gang-raping “countless” women and girls, some as young as nine, according to an investigation documenting the shocking prevalence of sexual violence in Khartoum during the country’s civil war.

Some of the attacks by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were so brutal that women and girls died “due to the violence associated with the act of rape”, according to the research by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

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‘Smoking gun’ evidence points to UAE involvement in Sudan civil war

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Exclusive: Discovery of Emirati passports in wreckage suggest covert boots on the ground, despite Gulf state’s denials

Passports recovered from battlefields in Sudan suggest the United Arab Emirates is covertly putting boots on the ground in the country’s devastating civil war, according to leaked documents.

A 41-page document, sent to the UN security council and seen by the Guardian, contains images of Emirati passports allegedly found in Sudan and linked to soldiers of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the African nation’s notorious paramilitary.

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Women in war-torn Sudanese city forced to have sex in exchange for food

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Victims tell Guardian about widespread practice in war-torn Omdurman

Women struggling to survive in the war-torn Sudanese city of Omdurman say they are being forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for food.

More than two dozen women who have been unable to flee fighting in Omdurman said that sexual intercourse with men from the Sudanese army was the only way they could access food or goods that they could sell to raise money to feed their families.

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War is lead cause behind huge drop in global vaccinations, UN warns

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Vaccine misinformation has added to crisis of collapsed healthcare and poor nutrition, Unicef and WHO report

Conflicts have hampered efforts to vaccinate children across the world, health leaders have warned, as new figures showed about 14.5 million children had not received a single immunisation dose.

More than half of the children live in countries where armed conflicts or other humanitarian crises had created fragile and vulnerable situations, according to data from the UN children’s agency, Unicef, and the World Health Organization.

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From conflict to the climate – what are the UK parties’ international plans?

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As the election nears, we scrutinise how each of the main contenders would deal with problems around the world

Conflicts and environmental disasters are stretching humanitarian resources, and a new UK government will have to decide what role it will play on the world stage in dealing with global problems, especially after budget cuts and closure of the Department for International Development by the Conservatives, and with priorities so focused on Ukraine. We’ve talked to the main parties and looked at their manifestos to see what their plans are.

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Sudan on precipice of famine ‘beyond imagination’, says outgoing UN aid chief

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Man-made crises in Gaza and Sudan leaving millions of people at risk, says retiring British diplomat Martin Griffiths

Sudan is facing horror “beyond imagination”, the outgoing UN aid chief has warned, with 750,000 people under imminent threat of famine and with conditions in danger of worsening even further.

The British diplomat Martin Griffiths will retire from his job as the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs at a time when famine on a historic scale is looming over Sudan and Gaza.

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Londoner continues epic trans-Africa run after release from South Sudan jail

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Deo Kato detained by security services for three weeks after being arrested near Juba on run from South Africa to UK

A Ugandan-born Londoner on a 9,000-mile run from South Africa to London has been released from jail in South Sudan, his partner has told the Guardian.

Deo Kato had already run more than the length of Africa – the equivalent of more than 200 marathons – when he was arrested near Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on 2 June. His partner and project manager, Alice Light, had no idea where he was, only discovering he was in prison on 17 June.

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Sudan’s warring factions using starvation as weapon, experts say

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Special rapporteurs working for UN warn famine is imminent and over 25 million people need urgent help

Human rights experts working for the United Nations have accused Sudan’s warring parties of using starvation as a war weapon, amid mounting warnings of imminent famine in the African country.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the country’s military and a notorious paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

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UK ‘tried to suppress criticism’ of alleged UAE role in arming Sudan’s RSF militia

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Exclusive UK accused of trying to head off condemnation of Gulf ally over alleged aid to forces accused of genocide in Darfur

UK government officials attempted to suppress criticism of the United Arab Emirates and its alleged role in supplying arms to a notorious militia waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan, sources have told the Guardian.

Claims that Foreign Office officials put pressure on African diplomats to avoid criticising the UAE over its alleged military support for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) will intensify scrutiny of the UK’s relationship with the Gulf state.

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EU-funded Egyptian forces ‘rounding up and deporting Sudanese refugees’

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Egypt forcibly returned 800 Sudanese detainees in first three months of this year, Amnesty International reports

The Egyptian authorities have used EU-funded security forces in a campaign of mass arrests and forcible deportations against refugees from the Sudan war, according to a human rights group report.

Amnesty International found Egypt “forcibly returned an estimated 800 Sudanese detainees between January and March 2024, who were all denied the possibility to claim asylum”.

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