NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council faced calls on Thursday to put pressure on the UAE to stop arming the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring military factions in Sudan, amid warnings that atrocities bearing “the hallmarks of genocide” were spreading and the situation in the country risks causing further regional destabilization.
Sudanese activist Hala Alkarib said that “unchecked external interference” was allowing atrocities to continue. She cited the documentation by a UN panel of experts and international nongovernmental organizations of weapons and military equipment being shipped into Darfur, “including by the United Arab Emirates, in violation of this Council’s arms embargo.”
She told council members: “You can stop the violence by pressuring the RSF’s powerful backers with economic, political and criminal consequences.”
The council also heard warnings from Alkarib and senior UN officials that after more than 1,000 days of war, civilians face renewed risks of mass atrocities in Darfur and Kordofan.
Earlier on Thursday, the International Independent Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan issued a report that described atrocities committed by the RSF in and around El-Fasher in late October last year as “indicators of a genocidal path.”
