Sudanese people living through ‘nightmare of violence, hunger’: UN chief

Antonio Guterres says millions going hungry and others face atrocities amid escalating attacks by rival forces.

The Sudanese people are living through a “nightmare of violence, hunger and displacement”, and countless others are facing “unspeakable atrocities”, including widespread rapes, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the UN Security Council on Monday.

He singled out “shocking reports of mass killings and sexual violence” in villages in east-central Gezira province. The UN and a doctors’ group noted that paramilitary fighters wreaked havoc in the region in a multi-day attack that killed more than 120 people in one town.

The UN chief said the country’s warring military and paramilitary forces are escalating attacks with outside powers “fuelling the fire” and intensifying the nightmare of hunger and disease for millions.

Guterres warned that the 18-month war faces the serious possibility of “igniting regional instability from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa to the Red Sea.”

War erupted in Sudan in mid-April 2023 from a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, triggering the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 11 million people have fled their homes, including three million to neighbouring countries.

The war has killed more than 24,000 people so far, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group monitoring the conflict since it started.

“Sudan is, once again, rapidly becoming a nightmare of mass ethnic violence,” Guterres said, referring to a conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region about 20 years ago that led to the International Criminal Court charging former Sudanese leaders with genocide and crimes against humanity.

Up to 750,000 people are facing “catastrophic food insecurity” and famine conditions in North Darfur displacement sites, he said.

He said those who violate international humanitarian law must be held accountable.

Moreover, the UN noted that nearly 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population – need aid as famine has taken hold in displacement camps, and 11 million people have fled their homes. Nearly three million of those people have left for other countries.

“This is not just a matter of insufficient funding. Millions are going hungry because of access,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council.

Insufficient aid?

Thomas-Greenfield said Washington was alarmed that instead of facilitating aid, the Sudanese authorities “continue to undermine, intimidate, and target humanitarian officials.” She said they need to expand and streamline humanitarian movements.

The Sudanese army-backed government is committed to facilitating aid deliveries across the country, including in areas controlled by the RSF, according to Sudan’s UN Ambassador Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed. He said 10 border crossings and seven airports had been opened for aid deliveries.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council it was up to the Sudanese government to decide whether the Adre crossing would remain open beyond mid-November and that it would be “inappropriate to put pressure on” the government.

“We’re categorically opposed to the politicisation of humanitarian assistance,” he said. “We believe that any humanitarian assistance should be conducted and delivered solely with the central authorities in the loop.”