S/PV.9503 Security Council

In accordance with rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the representative of the Sudan to participate in this meeting. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. At this meeting, the Council will hear a briefing by Ms. Carolyn Oppong-Ntiri, Deputy Permanent Representative of Ghana to the United Nations, in her capacity as the representative of the Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005), concerning the Sudan. I now give the floor to Ms. Oppong-Ntiri. Ms. Oppong-Ntiri: In accordance with paragraph 3 (a) (iv) of resolution 1591 (2005), I have the honour to brief the Security Council on the work of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005), concerning the Sudan, covering the period from 14 September to today. During that reporting period, the Committee met once in informal consultations and received the second quarterly update of the Panel of Experts on the Sudan. On 6 November and in accordance with paragraph 5 of resolution 2664 (2022), a representative of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, on behalf of the Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the Committee on the delivery of life-saving assistance and other activities that support essential humanitarian needs in the Sudan. On 9 November, the Committee issued a press release (SC/15486) on those informal consultations. On 31 October, the Sudan Panel of Experts submitted a second quarterly update to the Committee. The Panel updated the Committee on the rapid escalation of violence in west Darfur, during which women and children were the most affected. The Panel reported that sexual violence was widespread and ongoing, with the Rapid Support Forces and allied militia reported as the alleged perpetrators. The Panel reported that limited access to Darfur, in general, continued to hamper the delivery of humanitarian aid, while some access to west and central Darfur was possible. The Panel also reported on regional dynamics, mediation efforts, the increasing tensions between the signatories of the Juba Peace Agreement and the financing of the conflict. Finally, as today is my last briefing to the Council as the Chair of the Committee, I would like to say a few final words. I would like to thank all the Committee members, who worked tirelessly over the past two years. I would also like to thank the Secretariat for all of the support it has provided over the past two years. I will be handing over the lessons learned and wish the very best of luck to the incoming Chair. I hope that we can contribute to peace in the Sudan and in Darfur, in particular.

I thank Ms. Oppong-Ntiri for her briefing. I now give the floor to the representative of the Sudan.

The Security Council imposed an arms embargo on 30 July 2004, pursuant to resolution 1556 (2004), which included all non-governmental entities and individuals, specifically the Janjaweed militias, who had an active presence in the north, south and west states of Darfur at the time. Resolution 1591 (2005) extended the scope of that arms embargo to include all parties related to the N’Djamena ceasefire agreement and other combatants in those states. The resolution imposed travel bans and assets freezes on specific individuals and established the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005), concerning the Sudan, to oversee the four indicators, as well as a Panel of Experts to assist the Committee. The mandate of the Sanctions Committee includes reviewing the implementation of the sanctions measures and indicators, which were reduced from four to two, namely, indicators two and three — on security arrangements and the protection of civilians, respectively. The resolution imposed an arms embargo and an assets freeze. In that context, we would like to touch upon threats to stability in the Darfur region, violations of international humanitarian law and human rights violations, including attacks on civilians, sexual violence against women, gender-based violence and violence targeting women and children in conflict areas by the militias of the Rapid Support Forces. I stress that the sanctions imposed under resolution 1591 (2005) are limited to the Darfur region and do not include the rest of the Sudan. I can briefly say that the international community’s failure to uphold its commitments regarding the implementation of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process is one of the reasons that impeded the full implementation of the Juba Peace Agreement, despite the commitment of the transitional Government to implement relevant activities and programmes. With regard to the progress made in the National Action Plan for the Protection of Civilians, the transitional Government developed the Plan before the war. There is no longer a war between the Darfur movements that joined the Juba Peace Agreement in October 2020 and the Sudanese Armed Forces, but they joined together to bolster the Sudan against the aggressive attack supported by States of the region that are mobilizing mercenaries to undermine the stability, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Sudan. With regard to monitoring the implementation of the National Action Plan, there is a mechanism designated for that purpose, supervised by the Minister of Cabinet Affairs and chaired by the Minister of the Interior. That mechanism includes all relevant ministries and institutions. That Plan was submitted to the Council two years ago. Enhancing the protection of civilians requires financial support for strengthening the regular forces and the Darfur Joint Protection Force in order to more effectively combat human and drug smuggling and support the supplemental National Action Plan on the protection of civilians, referred to the Security Council. That also requires addressing climate change and promoting efforts made by the armed forces that repel attacks waged by the Rapid Support Forces, which seek to displace and kill civilians, loot their property, rape women, employ sexual violence and carry out identity- based killings. All of that is no longer a secret that needs further evidence. It has been documented in video and audio recorded by the invaders who support the Rapid Support militia. We call upon the United Nations and the international community to strengthen the Government’s efforts and to promote the capabilities of regular forces, along with relevant units in the armed forces that secure camps for displaced persons and villages for voluntary return, to help enforce the principles of international humanitarian law and to enhance the capacities of the police to combat sexual violence, employed by militias and invaders as a deliberate method to displace citizens by forcing them to leave their homes and replace them with foreigners. The geography of resolution 1591 (2005) needs to be carefully read and reviewed, taking into account the dynamics of the current force. The armed forces are facing an alliance of militias and invaders while an arms embargo is imposed on those forces in Darfur. At the same time, the allies of the militias provide political cover for their war of aggression which has not been condemned. They called for a new arms embargo to be imposed on the armed forces, as well as an aerial embargo because, from their strange perspective, that would achieve their political objective and defeat the armed forces which, under the Charter of the United Nations and the Sudanese Constitution, have the right to self-defence, to address the aggression and to preserve the territorial integrity of the Sudan. For that reason, we demand that an embargo on the transfer of arms and military equipment to the allies of the Rapid Support Forces and mercenary invaders, as well as States, be imposed by the Security Council, if Council members wish to safeguard peace and security in Darfur, and that the armed forces be excluded from the arms embargo that has been imposed on them since 2004. With regard to the situation in the Darfur region, the militias and their allies who perpetrated acts of aggression against civilians there are continuing their violations in South Darfur and Central Darfur states. They are forcibly entering civilians’ homes, expelling their residents and looting their properties, in addition to robbing banks and stealing financial deposits, torturing citizens and targeting anybody related to officers in the armed forces. Furthermore, the mercenary militias are raping underage women and turning medical facilities into military barracks. They confiscated the Turkish hospital in Nyala. Those militias are displacing citizens through indiscriminate bombings and continuing their forced recruitment of children, sending them to the battlefield in Zalinji. They are practicing force displacement and killing civilians from the Masalit tribe and burning their places. They killed and burned persons related to the late Wali, or Governor, Khamis Abakar. They burned the El Geneina market place, especially shops owned by persons of the Masalit tribe. They are killing prisoners and wounded soldiers of the armed forces. The rebel militias and their allies receive support to bolster their fighting capabilities. They are strengthening their relationship with the armed stakeholders in neighbouring States and transferring foreign fighters and military equipment. They use airports in neighbouring States to transport weapons, ammunition and equipment to the militias. They established field hospitals in those States to treat the wounded of those militias and to transport them abroad to receive treatment. That constitutes a crime of aggression and a violation of the sovereignty of the Republic of the Sudan, as well as a flagrant violation of international law, and demands the strongest condemnation of the Council. We have always said that the Rapid Support Forces are not only one party but multiple parties that mobilized mercenaries and provided them with weapons and equipment to invade the Sudan. The support provided to the rebel militias by their sponsors in the region has resulted in a protracted war. The military intelligence apparatus has concluded that the militias have received weapons and supplies through the aforementioned airports. The rebel militias have received military support that included all kinds of weaponry, namely, medium and heavy artillery, mortars, 122-mm howitzers, D30, small and large rocket launchers, drones, reconnaissance and combat aircraft, along with communication and jamming devices. They recently received anti-tank Kornet rockets used by the mercenaries from the windows and roofs of high buildings against moving targets up to 10 kilometres away. Those rockets are guided by lasers and very expensive. The States that the Sudan has accused of supporting those militias want us to believe that those lethal weapons fell to the militias out of the sky. In conclusion, crimes of ethnic cleansing are still being committed against multiple tribes in Darfur leading to displacement in the region. The armed struggle movements in Darfur that signed the Juba Peace Agreement in October 2020, including the Justice and Equality Movement, led by Gibril Ibrahim, and the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minawi, as well as the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Abdul Wahid Al-Nur, which did not sign the Juba Peace Agreement, emphasized on 18 November that they had abandoned the neutrality that they had maintained throughout the war since April owing to the escalating violations and atrocities perpetrated by the militias against the citizens in Darfur, including Fur, Zaghawa, Masalit and other tribes, based on the right to self-defence which is guaranteed by law, the Constitution and the Charter of the United Nations. Their neutrality would lead to the recurrence of what happened in Rwanda in 1994 when the international community failed to address the genocide against the Tutsis. The militias still receive lots of mercenaries from States in the region and the Sahel, in addition to underage children from displacement camps and other areas where they are pushed into the bloody war.