U.N. political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the 15-member Security Council that violent clashes between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces were nearing El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. DiCarlo warned the fighting in El Fasher could unleash bloody intercommunal strife throughout the Sudanese region.
U.N. aid operations director, Edem Wosornu, echoed DiCarlo’s sentiments, stating that “the violence poses an extreme and immediate danger to the 800,000 civilians who reside in El Fasher.”
Both U.N. officials made the warning days after Secretary-General António Guterres marked the first anniversary of the civil war that erupted on April 15, 2023, with millions facing acute hunger and the terrifying threat of famine looming in the North African country in the coming months.
“And the world is forgetting about the people of Sudan… the terrifying threat of famine in the months ahead,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
Just a few weeks earlier, the U.N. made a grim revelation, stating that Sudan is on track to become the world’s worst hunger crisis. The international agency also said that nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, need aid and some eight million have fled their homes.
Meanwhile, American senators wrote an open letter to U.S. President Joe Biden last week, demanding that Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its leader, General Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, be recognized as violators of human rights. The American senators gave Biden 120 days to act on their request.
