UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Sunday ended a five-day visit to Sudan with a stark warning to the parties to the conflict: the horrific violations and abuses committed during the capture of El Fasher, North Darfur must under no circumstances be repeated in Kadugli and Dilling, in South Kordofan.
During his visit to Sudan, and in particular to Al Afad site for internally displaced people in Ad Dabba, Northern State, which is sheltering some 20,000 displaced people, we bore witness to the trauma and reverberating impact of the brutality that children, men and women suffered in El Fasher and as they attempted to flee.
The capture of El Fasher in late October was characterized by widespread summary executions, the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, dehumanizing treatment and abductions for ransom. The offensive was preceded by a suffocating 18-month long siege that prevented civilians from getting food, access to health and other basic needs, with constant attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure.
The High Commissioner urged all parties to the conflict, including in a meeting with an RSF delegation on Sunday, to ensure that the crimes committed during and after the takeover of El Fasher are not repeated in Kadugli, Dilling and the wider Kordofan region. Reports suggest that additional troops from the Rapid Support Forces and allied SPLM-North are about 20 kilometres from the besieged city of Kadugli, which is currently under control of the Sudanese Armed Forces and where famine conditions have been confirmed.
We have heard reports of relentless military engagements, heavy shelling, drone bombardments and airstrikes by parties to the conflict causing widespread destruction and collapse of essential services. Over 25,000 people have already been displaced from their homes across South Kordofan since late October when hostilities intensified in the Kordofan region.
The High Commissioner identified a number of immediate measures that the parties can implement at once.
Safe passage must be ensured for civilians who leave areas of active conflict.
They must be protected from summary executions, sexual violence, reprisal attacks based on alleged 'collaboration', arbitrary detention and abductions.
All parties to the conflict need to ensure that forces allied with them or under their control act in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law - including, crucially, by repressing such violations and holding those responsible for violations and abuses to account, regardless of their affiliation.
Throughout the course of this conflict, all parties have perpetrated gross violations and abuses of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law, notably when the fighting intensifies to bring new areas under the control of one of the parties. In a report to the Security Council yesterday, the International Criminal Court assessed the commission of both war crimes and crimes against humanity around the fall of El Fasher and beyond. This validates very much our own findings.
Having witnessed the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure at the Merowe dam and hydroelectric power station, the High Commissioner said the RSF and the SAF must cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters. They must ensure the protection of civilians, and unimpeded access for the delivery of humanitarian aid. Protection from arbitrary detention is essential and all those deprived of liberty must be treated humanely, in accordance with international law. As the High Commissioner has said, a chronicle of cruelty is unfolding before our very eyes - and we must not look away.
All those who have influence, including regional actors and notably those who supply the arms and benefit economically from this war, need to act urgently to put an end to it.
(2) Ukraine
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said he was outraged by the repeated large-scale attacks by the Russian Federation on energy infrastructure in Ukraine, following further strikes last night that shut down heating and electricity in major urban areas, including in Kyiv and Odesa.
"This, as the people of Ukraine are gripped by extreme cold, with temperatures below minus 10 degrees Celsius at night," the High Commissioner said.
"Civilians are bearing the brunt of these attacks. They can only be described as cruel. They must stop. Targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a clear breach of the rules of warfare."
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