SUDAN – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan’s brutal civil war, which the UN says has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Guterres’s appeal, made on Friday, follows a peace initiative presented by Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris to the UN Security Council on Monday, which called for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to disarm. The plan was rejected by the RSF as “wishful thinking”.
The war erupted in April 2023 when a power struggle broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF paramilitary group. Since then, the conflict has displaced 9.6 million people internally and forced 4.3 million to flee to neighbouring countries, while 30.4 million Sudanese now need humanitarian assistance, according to UN figures. UN Assistant Secretary-General Mohamed Khaled Khiari told the UNSC this week that fears of intensified fighting during the dry season had been confirmed.
“Each passing day brings staggering levels of violence and destruction,” he said. “Civilians are enduring immense, unimaginable suffering, with no end in sight.” The conflict has shifted in recent weeks to Sudan’s central Kordofan region, where the RSF captured the strategic Heglig oilfield on December 8. The seizure prompted South Sudanese forces to cross into Sudan to protect the infrastructure, which Khiari warned reflects “the increasingly complex nature of the conflict and its expanding regional dimensions”.
The RSF has also launched a final push to consolidate full control over North Darfur state, attacking towns in the Dar Zaghawa region near the Chad border since December 24. The offensive threatens to close the last escape corridor for civilians fleeing the country to Chad. The Sudan Doctors Network, a medical advocacy group monitoring the conflict, said more than 200 people, including children and women, were killed on an ethnic basis by the RSF in the Ambaro, Sarba, and Abu Qamra areas in North Darfur during the offensive.
The violence spilled across Sudan’s borders on Friday when a drone attack killed two Chadian soldiers at a military camp in the border town of Tine. A Chadian military intelligence officer told Reuters news agency the drone came from Sudan, though it remained unclear whether it was launched by the army or the RSF. Chad has placed its air force on high alert and warned it would “exercise our right to retaliate” if the strike is confirmed as deliberate. (Aljazeera)
