UN official warns risk of genocide in Sudan is ‘very high’
The risk of genocide occurring in Sudan’s destructive civil war remains “very high”, a top United Nations official warned on June 23rd. This is due to the continuation of ethnically motivated attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, according to The New Arab on June 24th.
Sudan has been ravaged by an extremely violent civil war since April 2023, which emerged as a power struggle between head of Sudanese Armed Forces Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, more commonly known has Hemedti.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced a further 13 million, including four million who have fled across national boundaries into neighbouring countries. Recently, 16,000 Sudanese were displaced within the space of a week as violence escalated. The United Nations labelled the situation in Sudan as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“Both parties have committed serious human rights violations,” said Virginia Gamba, who is a UN under secretary-general and the acting special advisor on the prevention of genocide to UN secretary general Antonio Guterres.
“Of specific concern to my mandate is the continued and targeted attacks against certain ethnic groups, particularly in the Darfur and Kordofan regions,” she informed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
She drew particular attention to the RSF and allied Arab militias who “continue to conduct ethnically motivated attacks against the Zaghawa, Masalit and Fur groups.”
Gamba warned that “the risk of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan remains very high.”
Her comments have come after the International Court of Justice – the UN’s top court – dismissed a case last month which was brought by Sudan against the United Arab Emirates over alleged complicity in genocide for funding the RSF in the war. These accusations have been denied by the Emiratis.
The court said that it “manifestly lacked” the jurisdiction to rule on the case.
The New Arab, Maghrebi.org
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