UN official calls for more attention to the ‘forgotten’ war in Sudan, amid new atrocities

CAIRO – A senior United Nations official called on Friday for more international attention to “the forgotten crisis” in Sudan, where more than a year and a half of war has brought the African country to the brink of famine.

The call from Ted Chaiban, deputy head of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, came as notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces rampaged through towns and cities in the east-central province of Gezira, looting and destroying public and private property, a doctors’ union said. a youth group. Dozens of people are said to have been killed.

Chaiban said the war, which broke out in April 2023 between the military and the RSF, caused “one of the most acute crises in living memory,” forcing more than 14 million people to flee their homes, making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis is.

“We have never seen numbers like this in a generation,” he told The Associated Press in an interview, referring to the displaced, as well as the 8.5 million people facing food insecurity emergencies, and 775,000 others facing famine-like conditions.

“The whole country is disrupted,” he said. “And yet the country and the crisis are nevertheless forgotten.”

The war came four years after a pro-democracy uprising forced the military to oust the country’s longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir, followed by a short-lived transition to democracy. More than 24,000 people have been killed so far, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group that has been monitoring the conflict since it began.

Chaiban spoke to the AP after he and Raouf Mazou, assistant high commissioner for operations at the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, visited eastern Sudan earlier this week. They met with local authorities and visited displaced people in a sprawling camp with more than 4,000 people in the eastern province of Kassala.

They called for unfettered access to those in need across the country, and advocated greater global attention to what Chaiban described as “one of the crucial generational crises we face.”

Global attention has shifted to the Middle East since the militant group Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel last October, sparking a war that has killed around 42,000 people in Gaza. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza makes no distinction between militants and civilians but says more than half of the dead were women and children. The Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. Now international efforts are focusing on the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, amid growing concerns about a regional war between Israel and Iran.

“We have done everything we can to respond to the war in Gaza and the war in Lebanon. … Sudan also needs this level of attention,” he said.

The Sudanese army has been carrying out a major offensive since September to retake RSF-controlled areas in and around the capital Khartoum. The army also captured Jebel Moya, a strategic mountain area in Gezira province, earlier this month, in a major setback for the RSF, which also lost other areas in Gezira and nearby Sinnar province.

Also in October, a top RSF commander, Abu Aqlah Keikel, the de facto ruler of Gezira province, defected and surrendered to the army.

Local media reported that Keikel’s surrender was a coordinated operation. The army said in a statement that Keikel “decided to fight alongside our army, leaving rebel lines after discovering the falsity of the terrorist Dagalo militia’s claims.”

The RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, downplayed Keikel’s defection. The commander had supported the army at the start of the war but switched sides in August last year, according to the Sudan War Monitor, a group that monitors the conflict.

RSF fighters were enraged and rampaged through several towns and villages east and north of Gezira, as well as the city of Tamboul, killing dozens of civilians and displacing thousands of others.

In one town, Sariha, RSF fighters killed at least 50 people and injured 200 others, according to the Resistance Committees, a network of youth groups monitoring the war. At least 12 people were killed in Saqiaah village, the report said.

The Doctors’ Association in Sudan said on Thursday that the RSF attacks had turned areas in eastern Gezira into a “brutal war zone”.

RSF fighters have committed “systemic sexual crimes, burned homes and properties and attacked health care facilities, along with systematic looting and forced displacement,” the union said in a statement on Thursday.

The war was characterized by atrocities such as mass rape and ethnicity-related killings. The United Nations and international rights groups say these acts amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, which has suffered a bitter attack from the RSF.

The conflict pushed the country to the brink of famine, which was confirmed in July at the Zamzam camp for displaced people, located about 15 kilometers from the embattled capital al-Fasher in North Darfur, according to global experts from the Famine Assessment Commission. About 25.6 million people – more than half of Sudan’s population – are expected to face acute hunger this year, they warned.