UN experts call for ‘impartial force’ to protect civilians in Sudan

Warring parties have committed ‘harrowing human rights violations’ that could amount to war crimes, report finds.

United Nations-backed human rights experts have called for an “independent and impartial force” in Sudan and the widening of an arms embargo to protect civilians in the escalating conflict.

The warring parties had committed “harrowing human rights violations and international crimes, including many which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan said in its first report on Friday.

It urged that the force be deployed “without delay”, but did not specify who might participate.

The conflict that started in April last year pitting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has spread to 14 of 18 states, killing tens of thousands of people and displacing millions.

The mission’s 19-page report, based on 182 interviews with survivors, their family members and witnesses conducted between January and August 2024, said both the SAF and the RSF were responsible for attacks on civilians “through rape and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, as well as torture and ill-treatment”.

The three-member team, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in October 2023, found evidence of “indiscriminate” air attacks and shelling against civilian targets including schools and hospitals as well as water and electricity supplies.

They charged the RSF and its allied militias with committing “numerous crimes against humanity”, including “murder, torture, enslavement, rape, sexual slavery, other sexual violence of comparable gravity, persecution on the basis of ethnic and gender targeting, and forcible displacement”.

The experts also called for an expansion of an arms embargo on Sudan’s long-restive western Darfur region to the entire country, stating that fighting would stop “once the arms flow stops”.

There should be an immediate end to funnelling weapons, ammunition and other support to any side, they said.

The mission did not say which countries might be complicit in the crimes through their backing of rival sides. Sudan’s military has accused the United Arab Emirates of supporting the RSF, a claim the Gulf country has denied.

‘Wake-up call’

In August, the United States convened talks in Switzerland aimed at ending the war, achieving progress on aid access but not a ceasefire.

It also announced visa sanctions on an unspecified number of individuals in South Sudan, including government officials accused of obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid for 25 million Sudanese facing severe hunger.

Friday’s report said Sudanese authorities should cooperate fully with the International Criminal Court (ICC), surrendering all indicted people, including former President Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown in 2019.

Efforts by the Sudanese authorities to investigate and prosecute those responsible for international crimes had been “marred by a lack of willingness characterised by selective justice and a lack of impartiality”, it said.

Mona Rishmawi, a member of the mission, said the report “should serve as a wake-up call to the international community to take decisive action to support survivors, their families and affected communities, and hold perpetrators accountable”.