UN officials warn of worsening situation in Sudan

Officials from the UN refugee agency, World Health Organization and UNMAS (United Nations Mine Action Service) on Friday delivered stark warnings over the deteriorating situation in Sudan.

The military and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, went to war in 2023, when tensions erupted between them. The army and RSF are former allies that were supposed to oversee a democratic transition after a 2019 uprising.

The fighting has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, and displaced 12 million others.

However, aid groups say the true death toll could be many times higher.

Last month the RSF seized el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and rampaged through the Saudi Hospital in the city, killing more than 450 people, according to the World Health Organization.

RSF fighters went house to house, killing civilians and committing sexual assaults, aid workers and displaced residents said.

The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), said around 90,000 fled el-Fasher and nearby areas in the last two weeks.

The agency’s Head of Sub Office in Port Sudan, Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet said they are "stranded somewhere, not able to move further because of the danger or because they risk being sent back into el-Fasher, or because there are very vulnerable people amongst the group, such as persons with disability.”

Christian Lindmeier of the World Health Organization warned of the worsening food crisis with "over 21 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity as of September this year" and famine confirmed in some towns.

Lindmeier also described how people were dying due to lack of access to basic health facilities and warned of increasing number of Cholera cases with over 3,500 associated deaths.

Sediq Rashid, of UNMAS also briefed reporters in Geneva via video link from Sudan on the mounting casualties from mines and other unexploded ordnance.

The situation in Sudan was particularly dangerous as the violence was taking place in urban areas said Rashid.

The Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday passed an unopposed resolution calling on an existing team of independent experts to carry out an urgent inquiry into the hospital killings and other rights violations in el-Fasher by the RSF.