UN-backed human rights experts seek wider arms embargo, ‘impartial force’ deployed to war-torn Sudan

GENEVA — UN-backed human rights investigators on Friday urged the creation of an “independent and impartial force” to protect civilians in Sudan’s war, blaming both sides for war crimes including killing, mutilation and torture, and warning that foreign governments that arm and fund them could be complicit.

In their first report since it was established by the UN’s top human rights body in October last year, the investigative team also accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which are fighting Sudan’s military, and its allies of crimes against humanity, including rape, sexual slavery and persecution on the basis of ethnicity or gender.

The experts called for an arms embargo on Sudan’s long-restive western Darfur region to be extended to the entire country.

The findings of the team appointed by the 47-nation Human Rights Council come at a time when more than 10 million people have been forced from their homes – including more than 2 million to neighbouring countries – and famine has broken out in one big camp for displaced people in Darfur.

The conflict that broke out in April last year has cost countless thousands of lives and humanitarian organizations are struggling to access people in need. In December, the UN Security Council voted to end the political mission of the world body in the country under pressure from the military leadership.

While the killings, displacements and forced starvation have been known for some time, the call for the creation of an independent authority is the latest sign of desperation among human rights activists at home and abroad to end the bloodshed, displacement and food crisis.

“Given the failure of the parties to protect civilians to date, the fact-finding mission recommends the deployment of an independent and impartial force with a mandate to protect civilians in Sudan,” the team’s report said.

The experts did not specify what the force might consist of, nor did they say which countries might be complicit in the crimes through their support for rival parties. Sudan’s military has United Arab Emirates in support of RSFa claim the Gulf country denies.

Neighboring Egypt is one of the sponsors of the Sudanese armed forces.

“The fact-finding mission believes that the fighting will stop once the flow of arms stops,” the report said. It called for an immediate halt to the channeling of arms, ammunition and other aid to any side, “as there is a risk that those supplying arms are complicit in serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law.”

The experts focused on a period from January to August this year, visiting three neighbouring countries and recording testimonies from more than 180 survivors, family members and witnesses of the conflict that has now spread to 14 of Sudan’s 18 states.

Earlier this month, talks in Geneva convened by the United States, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia made some progress in getting aid into Sudan, but mediators lamented the lack of participation by Sudan’s armed forces. Egypt, the UAE, the African Union and the United Nations were also involved in the talks.