The United Nations Security Council has unanimously renewed for another year an arms embargo on conflict parties in Sudan's Darfur region, where war between rival generals has intensified in recent months, exacerbating the world's largest humanitarian crisis. But human rights groups and UN experts say Wednesday's renewal of the embargo does not go far enough and should include all of Sudan.
The western region of Darfur is one of the worst-affected parts of Sudan's current civil war, which pits the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied armed groups against each other.
When the sanctions regime was established in 2004, Darfur was at the center of a conflict between non-Arab ethnic groups and government-backed militias known as the Janjaweed, with widespread human rights violations, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. Janjaweed fighters make up elements of the present-day RSF. The embargo originally applied to non-governmental entities and was later extended to all parties to the conflict, including the Sudanese government.
Sudan's envoy to the UN welcomed the extension, but urged the Council to go further and sanction the entire RSF militia, the rival force to the government-backed SAF.
“The militia, in its entirety, really needs to be listed, because it fulfills all the conditions,” Ambassador Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed said. “There also needs to be an end to the financing of the militia.”
Since April last year, the RSF has captured most of Darfur, and since May this year fighting has been going on for the capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, which is the only Darfuri regional capital that has not fallen to the RSF.
The Sudanese military has repeatedly accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of supplying the RSF with arms and ammunition smuggled in through neighboring Chad. The UAE has strongly denied the allegations.
A report by a United Nations panel of experts earlier this year said there was substance to media reports that cargo planes from the UAE capital had landed in eastern Chad with arms, ammunition and medical equipment destined for the paramilitary group.
At the meeting, Sudan's envoy accused the UAE of profiting from his country's natural resources, including gold and uranium, and urged the Security Council to act.
“We are calling for clear measures to be taken against those who seek to sabotage the Sudanese economy - namely businesses and companies whose headquarters are in the UAE,” Mohamed said.
Pointing to dire humanitarian conditions, including internal displacement and the refugee crisis, he called for increased support from UN agencies and a "strategic plan for peace" that takes Sudan's concerns into account.
“The repetition of baseless allegations does not make them true,” Emirati Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab told the council. He urged the Sudanese army to show “political courage” and participate in peace talks to end the war.
The SAF was absent from ceasefire talks brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in Geneva in August because the UAE was invited to participate as an observer.
While the cease-fire talks have failed to end the country's 16-month conflict, they have at least succeeded in securing greater humanitarian access to millions of people who have been deprived of food, medicine, and other essential aid for many months.
The United States led negotiations in the Council to renew the arms embargo on Darfur. The US has also proposed that the Security Council sanction two RSF commanders, but their designation remains in limbo after Russia put it on hold on August 31.
“Renewing the sanctions measures will restrict the movement of arms into Darfur and sanction individuals and entities contributing to, or complicit in, destabilizing activities of Sudan,” US envoy Robert Wood said.
“All of this is critical to helping end the escalating conflict, alleviate humanitarian catastrophe and put Sudan back on the path to stability and security.”
Human rights groups say the renewal of the embargo does not go far enough and should include all of Sudan.
“The Council should correct this failure as soon as possible and expand the arms restrictions to cover all of Sudan, to limit the flow of arms and curb widespread atrocities being committed in the country,” said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
UN agencies, independent UN-appointed experts, and rights groups say the parties involved have committed widespread war crimes, violations of international humanitarian law, and other human rights abuses during the nearly 18-month conflict.
In an initial report released last week, the UN's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan said both the SAF and RSF, as well as their respective allies, were responsible for horrific human rights violations and international crimes, including many that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The experts' report also recommended that the existing arms embargo be extended to all of Sudan in order to stem the supply of arms, ammunition and other logistical or financial support to the warring parties and to prevent further escalation.
In June, RSF and SAF were added to an annual UN blacklist of perpetrators of grave violations against children. They were named for violations committed over the past year, including the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals, and, in the case of the RSF, sexual violence and the recruitment and use of children in their ranks.
Ahead of Wednesday's vote, HRW had called on the Security Council to renew and extend the arms embargo and restrictions on the Darfur region to all of Sudan, to end the ongoing violations and suffering of the population, and to hold violators accountable.
The rights group reported on Monday that both warring parties had newly acquired advanced foreign-made weapons and military equipment since the start of the war.
"We based our research on an analysis of photos and videos posted on social media and primarily taken by the fighters themselves, showing them in possession and using equipment such as attack drones, drone jammers, anti-tank guided missiles, as well as truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers systems and mortar munitions," said Gallopin.
The rights group's report shows that some of the mortars fired were manufactured in China last year. Companies in Iran, Russia, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates also produced some of the weapons used, the rights group said.
In a report published in July, the rights group Amnesty International (AI) found that “recently manufactured weapons and military equipment from countries such as Russia, China, Turkey, and the UAE are being imported in large quantities into Sudan, and then diverted into Darfur.”
"We believe that the existing embargo is not sufficient, that there needs to be a wholesale embargo on the sale of armed and military equipment to the whole of Sudan, because we documented, we and others documented very serious abuses carried out by the warring parties since last year, including widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity," said HRW’s Gallopin ahead of the vote.
"We know we published a report on Darfur showing that ethnic cleansing was committed. And so we think it's urgent for the Security Council to broaden that arms embargo."
The rights group is also calling on the Security Council to condemn governments that violate the existing arms embargo on Darfur and to take urgent action to sanction individuals and entities that do so.
Ahmed Hashi is a political and security commentator from the Horn of Africa. He told VOA earlier this week that the regional and international community is doing little to end the conflict, and that in fact RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedi, is receiving strong foreign support.
"I think the United Arab Emirates and other proxy states are arming Mr. Hamedi. I think that the rebellion inside Sudan is foreign-led. I think that the people who caused the Janjaweed and caused international human rights [violations], international crime are fighting in Sudan," he said.
Sudan's civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, which began on April 15 last year, has killed and injured tens of thousands of people, resulted in widespread atrocities and caused record displacement.
Since the beginning of the war, at least 10.6 million people - including more than 5 million children - have been displaced by the ongoing conflict. While more than 8.2 million people - Sudanese and refugees already living in the country - have been forced to flee within Sudan, more than 2.4 million women, men and children have sought refuge in other countries.
A recent food assessment found that 25.6 million people, or half the country's population, face acute hunger, and while 13 areas are at risk of famine, international monitors declared famine in the Zamzam camp near El Fasher in North Darfur. The 14 areas either in famine or at risk of famine are mostly located in Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum, and Al-Jazira.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: United Nations Security Council Resolution 2750 (S/RES/2750(2024)), adopted on September 11, 2024
https://undocs.org/S/RES/2750(2024)