(Note: A complete summary of today's Security Council meeting will be available at a later time.)
As the flames of war continue to engulf Sudan, the Security Council today was urged to prevent the horrors of this conflict from recurring and stop those enabling the violence from spreading instability further across the region.
"Each passing day brings staggering levels of violence and destruction," said Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific in the Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations. Reporting that the conflict has recently centred on the Kordofan region, he said that the Rapid Support Forces captured the town of Babanusa on 1 December and the Heglig oil field on 8 December. Kadugli and Dilling, both in South Kordofan, are now under siege. He also pointed to the reported movement of armed groups across the border between Sudan and South Sudan in both directions, "with potentially destabilizing effects for both countries".
He also spotlighted a "particularly alarming" feature of the conflict - namely, the growing use of indiscriminate drone strikes by both parties. Detailing affected targets, he noted a kindergarten and hospital hit on 4 December, a UN logistics base struck in Kadugli and six peacekeepers serving with the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) killed. He went on to state that the continued supply of weapons remains a key driver of the conflict, emphasizing that "Sudan is saturated with arms". Adding that the parties remain unwilling to compromise or de-escalate, he observed: "While they were able to stop fighting to preserve oil revenues, they have so far failed to do the same to protect their population."
Preventing further deterioration of the situation requires swift, coordinated action and - for its part - he urged the Council to send a clear and united message: "Those who enable this war will be held accountable." He also urged the organ to use "all the tools at its disposal" to demand peace and protect civilians.
Detailing their plight, Edem Wosornu, Director of the Crisis Response Division in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, stressed: "The brutality of this conflict appears to have no bounds." The Kordofan states are a new epicentre of violence and suffering, and she reported that "staggering" levels of humanitarian needs also persist across Darfur. Access to El Fasher is still unsafe amid continued allegations of grave abuses - including mass killings and sexual violence - during and after the Rapid Support Forces' takeover of the city. And, citing UN reports on the assault of the Zamzam refugee camp, she described the deliberate killing of civilians, "gruesome sexual violence" and the prolonged blocking of supplies essential for survival.
Stressing that humanitarian resources and capacities are severely stretched, she also warned of a collapse of health protection as the World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 65 attacks on healthcare since January. While the humanitarian response continues - reaching some 16.8 million people since January - she underscored: "Our system is under unprecedented strain and, increasingly, under direct attack." She therefore urged the Council to send a "strong, unequivocal" message that atrocities "will not be tolerated" and stressed that the organ cannot allow the horrors that unfolded in El Fasher to repeat.
Similarly, Cameron Hudson, independent analyst and consultant on African security, governance and geopolitics, called on the international community to "cease simply admiring the problem and take measurable actions". El Fasher - a city of roughly 1 million people a year ago - today has only 70,000-100,000 people remaining and thousands, if not tens of thousands, have been killed. Now, the Rapid Support Forces have set their strategic sights on neighbouring Kordofan states and, left unchecked, an all-out battle for control of the city of El Obeid - the capital of North Kordofan state - will emerge. This, he warned, promises to be the most destructive battle yet.
He also said that, over the course of the last year, this conflict has morphed from a conventional war fought with aging heavy equipment and light arms to a modern conflict deploying the latest generation of advanced weaponry. Weapons from as many as a dozen countries have been found to be in use by both sides. "Many of those countries providing weapons actively decry the civilian casualties inflicted by the same arms they provide," he said, while others sit on the Council. He added that the United Arab Emirates has constructed an extensive military air bridge operation, flying weapons to the Rapid Support Forces via client regimes in Chad, Libya, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Somalia's Puntland region.
Against that backdrop, he underscored that expanding the arms embargo on Sudan to cover the entire country is an overdue requirement. "This is not simply a civil war between warring generals seeking power and personal aggrandizement; it is a fully internationalized conflict with arms, financial and political networks extending across continents," he said, warning: "If we think these same networks won't support the region's next war in Chad or South Sudan or Ethiopia, we are mistaken."
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Complete Live Blog coverage of today's meeting can be found here .
