UN warns of new wave of atrocities in Sudan’s Kordofan

Cairo: The UN’s top human rights official issued a stark new warning on Thursday about Sudan, saying he fears “a new wave of atrocities” amid a surge in fierce fighting in the Kordofan region.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk urged “all states with influence over the parties to take immediate action to halt the fighting, and stop the arms flows that are fueling the conflict.”

Fighting between the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces, also known as the RSF, and the Sudanese military, who have been at war for over two years, has recently shifted to the oil-rich Kordofan region after the paramilitary group took over el-Fasher in Darfur.

According to the UN, the conflict in Sudan has killed 40,000 people — though some rights groups say the death toll is significantly higher — and has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with over 14 million displaced.

The RSF’s takeover of el-Fasher, the Sudanese military’s last stronghold in Darfur, was marked by the executions of civilians, rapes and sexual assaults. Over 100,000 people have fled el-Fasher since October, and thousands are feared trapped or believed to have been killed along the way, according to rights groups.

The RSF has had major gains since then.

“It is truly shocking to see history repeating itself in Kordofan so soon after the horrific events in el-Fasher,” Turk said

“We must not allow Kordofan to become another el-Fasher,” he said.

He said over 269 people were killed in the town of Bara in North Kordofan in aerial strikes, artillery shelling, and summary executions since the end of October, but that the numbers could be higher because telecommunications and internet outages have made numbers hard to verify.

He called for “the restoration of telecommunications to facilitate lifesaving assistance and to allow essential information to flow to civilians.”