A high-ranking United Nations official issued a warning on Friday, expressing grave concern over the escalating ethnic violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region and the deepening humanitarian crisis. The official characterised the violence against civilians as approaching a level of extreme malevolence.
By Staff Reporter
On Friday, a senior UN official, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, expressed serious concern about the escalating violence against civilians in Sudan, characterising it as reaching an unprecedented level of cruelty. This warning comes as the humanitarian crisis in the country deteriorates and tensions rise in the western region of Darfur.
“We continue to receive unrelenting and appalling reports of sexual- and gender-based violence and forced disappearance, arbitrary detentions and grave violations of human and children’s rights,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami told reporters.
“What is happening is verging on pure evil. The protection of civilians continues to be of major concern,” she said.
Following weeks of increasing tension surrounding a proposal to merge forces as a step towards transitioning from military governance to civilian rule, a war erupted on April 15 between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Nkweta-Salami, a top U.N. aid official in Sudan, said over 25 million individuals, which is more than half of the population, require humanitarian assistance and protection. Additionally, more than six million people have been forced to leave their homes and are currently displaced within Sudan or in neighbouring countries.
People fleeing to Chad have reported a new increase in ethnically motivated violence in Sudan’s West Darfur region, coinciding with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) assuming control of the primary military installation in the state capital, El Geneina.
“We have recently received disturbing reports about escalating violence and attacks against civilians, including what appears to be on an ethnic basis in Darfur,” she said.
Clementine Nkweta-Salami also told reporters that they are consistently receiving distressing and shocking accounts of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as forced disappearances, unjust detentions, and serious infringements of human and children’s rights.
“We continue to receive unrelenting and appalling reports of sexual- and gender-based violence and forced disappearance, arbitrary detentions, and grave violations of human and children’s rights.”
Humanitarian crisis worsens
The conflict between opposing military forces in Sudan is expanding in both scale and severity, resulting in the displacement of nearly six million individuals since it began in April. This is exacerbating an already intricate humanitarian crisis, cautioned the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
“The war that erupted without warning turned previously peaceful Sudanese homes into cemeteries. Now, fighting is growing in scope and brutality, affecting the people of Sudan, and the world is scandalously silent, though violations of international humanitarian law persist with impunity.
“It is shameful that the atrocities committed 20 years ago in Darfur can be happening again today with such little attention. As a result, almost six million people have been forced from their homes; more than a million have fled to neighbouring and often fragile countries – and some of them have already moved on,” said Dominique Hyde, Director of External Relations at UNHCR who visited the a week ago, and witnessed a surge in human suffering.
“Away from the eyes of the world and the news headlines, the conflict in Sudan continues to rage. Across the country, an unimaginable humanitarian crisis is unfolding, as more and more people are displaced by the relentless fighting,” Hyde explained.
Hyde also addressed the situation in the White Nile state, where over 433,000 internally displaced (IDPs) are estimated to be living, adding to nearly 300,000 mostly South Sudanese refugees sheltering in some 10 camps there since before the war.
She said the surge in displacement has “overwhelmed” essential services in the refugee camps, noting also that like in the rest of Sudan, schools have been shut for the last seven months as displaced people find temporary shelter inside the classrooms.
The health situation is also particularly alarming, with over 1,200 children under five having died in the province between mid-May and mid-September due to a measles outbreak combined with high levels of malnutrition, and at least four children are dying every week, as essential medicines, personnel, and supplies are lacking.
“In front of one of the refugee camps, you can see mounds of earth and they are just little burial grounds for the children that have died,” Hyde said.
