UN chief asks halt to Sudan’s RSF attacks on Al-Fashir in Darfur

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged an immediate halt to attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary force RSF on Al Fashir in Sudan, amid a severely deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country.

Guterres called on Lt. General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo to act responsibly and immediately order a halt to the RSF attack, his spokesman Dujarric said in a statement.

“It is unconscionable that the warring parties have repeatedly ignored calls for a cessation of hostilities,” he said. “Any further escalation will also threaten to spread the conflict along intercommunal lines throughout Darfur.”

He said the continued “full-scale” fighting takes place amid an “already catastrophic” humanitarian situation in the area.

Earlier this month, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan urged sending peacekeepers to the country and imposing an arms embargo there due to the surge of attacks on civilians by both warring sides.

The Sudanese army rejected this call.

In Darfur, in particular, the situation verges on genocide as residents say they watched militiamen go door-to-door hunting down civilian men in non-Arab neighborhoods, as the town’s army barracks were captured.

The conflict, which has spread to 14 of the 18 states in Sudan, has killed and wounded tens of thousands of civilians, displaced nearly 8 million people and forced two million more to flee to neighboring countries. The warring parties have exacerbated the crisis by obstructing humanitarian access, the report said.