S/PV.9656 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. I shall now make a statement in my capacity as Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan. 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 Sudan Sanctions Committee, covering the period from 19 March 2024 to today. On 22 April 2024, the Secretary-General appointed four experts to serve on the Panel until 12 March 2025. On 23 May, the Secretary-General appointed the fifth expert to serve on the Panel until 12 March 2025. During the reporting period, the Committee met once in informal consultations. On 4 June, the Committee heard a briefing by the Sudan Panel of Experts on its work programme for 2024–2025 and on the current situation in Darfur. The Coordinator provided the Committee with an overview of the Panel’s intended areas of investigation and monitoring, in accordance with the mandate as extended by resolution 2725 (2024). Committee members expressed their support for the work of the Panel of Experts. On 7 June, the Committee issued a press release regarding that briefing. I now resume my functions as President of the Council. I shall now give the floor to those members of the Council who wish to make statements.

I thank you, Mr. President, for your informative briefing as Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan. As we have previously stated, the United States is deeply concerned by the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Sudan. That conflict has been a nightmare for the Sudanese people, who have faced unthinkable violence and are living under the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. We cannot sit idly by as those horrors play out before our eyes. The Committee has a critical role to play in the international response. The Panel of Experts’ reporting provides vital insights into the humanitarian and security situation in Darfur. It offers recommendations for our response. And we must respond, as we did today with the resolution we adopted (resolution 2736 (2024)). That is especially important amid the outbreak of violence in El Fasher that has already caused untold suffering for the people of that region and has the potential to result in a large-scale massacre. We must therefore not only implement the sanctions regime, but also take additional steps to advance peace by supporting efforts to bring about an immediate end to the fighting, by putting pressure on the warring parties to stop blocking humanitarian access and aid and instead facilitate the surge of aid through all sources and all routes, and by demanding de-escalation, the withdrawal of fighters and the protection of civilians. We must all call on the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces to meet their obligations under international law and protect civilians from violence. More than just calling for those things, we should take concrete actions ourselves. Those who commit violations should be designated. The United States has already taken that kind of action, and we will continue to pursue accountability. We urge the Council to apply targeted sanctions measures to help to address the ongoing violence and to send a strong signal to perpetrators of abuses. We must also work to ensure that Member States facilitate the work of United Nations panels, as those panels carry out their mandates. The United States remains fully committed to working with the United Nations to end the bloodshed, protect civilians and bring peace to the Sudan. That conflict will not be solved on the battlefield. It will be solved at the negotiating table. That needs to happen, it needs to happen immediately, and it needs to happen with our support.

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the African members of the Security Council plus (A3+), namely Algeria, Guyana, Sierra Leone and my own country, Mozambique. The A3+ reiterates that the protracted conflict in the Sudan demands the Council’s close attention and united action. We are deeply concerned about the recent escalation of tensions and hostilities by armed groups in El Fasher, Darfur. The increased number of reports from credible sources of external interference fuelling the conflict, including an alarming level of arms transfers in Darfur, are deeply worrying. That matter was raised in different Council meetings on the situation in Darfur and the Sudan. However, we have yet to see a change. We need to identify concrete means to monitor closely the reported facts on foreign interference and take the appropriate measures in accordance with the arms embargo provisions. Those fuelling the conflict, whether through the supply of arms and ammunition, recruitment, financing or any other means, must be held accountable. We call upon Member States, in particular neighbouring States and actors operating in the region, to refrain from supplying arms or related materiel to any party to the conflict in Darfur. Compliance with the embargo is essential for regional peace and security. It is more than ever time for the parties to show restraint and wisdom in order to preserve innocent lives from further suffering and comply with the principles of international humanitarian law. There should be a focus on dialogue, reconciliation and peaceful resolution. The cycle of violence must end for the sake of civilian safety and regional stability. The A3+ remains resolute in our aim to work towards sustainable peace in the Sudan. We once again urge the parties to heed the calls of the international community and return to the negotiating table. The work of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan remains an essential tool for the Council to monitor the situation on the ground and identify the different violations of the sanctions regime by the conflict parties and other actors. In that regard, the A3+ expresses its support for the work of the Panel of Experts. Peace must prevail in the Sudan.

We thank you, Mr. President, for your wise coordination of the work of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan. During the 90-day reporting period, the membership of the Panel of Experts of that subsidiary body was renewed. We welcome its new member and wish the Panel every success in its work. We trust that it will continue to provide the Committee with an unbiased and balanced picture of developments in the Sudan and to base its conclusions and recommendations exclusively on reliable and trustworthy sources. We are convinced that it would be beneficial for the Panel of Experts to visit the Sudan during its mandate in order to meet with the country’s authorities and visit problematic regions. As practice has shown, the Security Council sanctions that have been in effect for almost 20 years are not helping to normalize the situation in the Darfur region. Weapons have been flowing into the region for that entire period, and they will continue to do so illegally. We are convinced that no Council-imposed restrictions, in particular if they are expanded, will bring peace closer but only destroy the last hope of achieving it, nor do we support the illegal unilateral restrictive measures imposed by Western countries to exert pressure on the Sudanese authorities.

I shall now make a statement in my capacity as the representative of the Republic of Korea. As members just heard, I delivered a briefing on the activities of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan as its Chair. As the briefing is based on the consensus of the Committee members, it is only a procedural and factual description of our work. However, I am concerned that it may give the impression that the Committee and the Security Council are not sufficiently addressing the dire situation on the ground in Darfur and throughout the Sudan. We are receiving observations from the Panel of Experts about the considerable supply and use of foreign weapons in Darfur on a daily basis, in flagrant violation of the arms embargo established by binding Security Council resolutions. However, it is indeed frustrating that the Committee’s ability to respond remains severely restricted. The Panel of Experts of the Committee, which is mandated to monitor and report on the implementation of sanctions measures, in particular the arms embargo, faces significant challenges to its work owing to security concerns that prevent them from travelling to Darfur, among other factors. In addition, when it comes to measures against arms embargo violations, the consensus-based nature of the Sanctions Committee tends to result in having to resort to the least common denominator, namely, urging all parties to the conflict and Member States to comply with the obligations set out in Security Council resolutions. In line with the Security Council resolution on El Fasher adopted today (resolution 2736 (2024)), we must redouble our efforts to ensure that all parties to the conflict and Member States comply with the arms embargo under the relevant Security Council resolutions. We would also like to underline that all parties that violate the arms embargo may be subject to targeted sanctions. In the light of the escalation of the conflict in Darfur and throughout the Sudan and the protracted catastrophic humanitarian crisis, we propose that all Council members work together to take more concrete action for the effective implementation and the strengthening of the current sanctions regime. We are committed to addressing those challenges with a sense of urgency and expect the same from others. I resume my functions as President of the Council. I now give the floor to the representative of the Sudan.

I would like to begin by congratulating you, Mr. President, on your presidency of the Security Council for the month of June, and we express our readiness to work with you. I also thank you for your quarterly briefing on the work of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan. Last week, Wad Al-Nura, a quiet agricultural village in the Gezira region of central Sudan, was subjected to a brutal and unprovoked attack by the criminal militias of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). That village, the inhabitants of which subsist on agriculture and honest work, was suddenly targeted, looted and pillaged. When its people tried to defend themselves, their property and their dignity, they faced the merciless bullets of treachery and cruelty. The result was tragic: 269 people were killed, including 53 innocent children, in addition to the dozens of injured and wounded, most of whom were elderly, women and children. The heinous attack in Wad Al-Nura is not an isolated incident but part of an ongoing series of systematic and widespread crimes committed by those militias in other parts of the El Gezira state. We have witnessed similar attacks in the areas of Al-Takeina, Fadasi, Al-Hurqa, Al-Mu’aliq and others, where those militias seek to spread terror and chaos among the peaceful civilian population, sowing the seeds of discord and communal societal division. As for Darfur, the situation is more serious and complex. El Fasher, one of the largest cities in the region and the Sudan, is currently facing grave and unprecedented dangers. The city is under a suffocating siege and heavy artillery shelling by the militia, which is directly and indiscriminately targeting civilians, threatening a humanitarian catastrophe. That violent and deliberate attack on El Fasher brings to mind the atrocities committed in El Geneina, Zalingei, Nyala and other cities and towns in Darfur. We are witnessing a pattern of genocide and crimes against humanity, whereby criminals are seeking to turn El Fasher into a mass grave through continued shelling, widespread destruction and deliberate starvation of the population through the withholding of essential humanitarian aid, including food and medicine. The pattern adopted by the RSF’s militias of targeting civilians and committing crimes of sexual violence and rape as a weapon of war undermines the dignity of Sudanese women and constitutes a real challenge that must be met rigorously. Those heinous and ongoing attacks are not just ordinary crimes. As we said, they are war crimes and crimes against humanity, and some constitute genocide in the full legal sense of the word. Allowing those crimes to continue unchecked poses a danger not only to the Sudan, but to the security and stability of the entire region. We therefore call on the Security Council to take firm and clear measures to condemn the actions of the RSF’s militia and to send a strong and unequivocal message that the international community will not condone the ongoing aggression against civilians and that the perpetrators of those heinous crimes will face justice and will be held accountable for their actions before national and international courts. The element of impunity must be curbed this time, especially since the Sudan has worked to develop mechanisms in that regard, including through the formation of a committee on violations and war crimes in Darfur and other areas in the Sudan. That complements the role that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is expected to play, in line with the principle of judicial complementarity and what was recently announced by the ICC Prosecutor in that regard. Furthermore, we call on the Security Council to identify and hold accountable the States that support and arm those criminal militias. The support of some States for those militias directly contributes to the continuation of violence and destruction in the Sudan. In particular, we would like to mention the official and regional sponsor of the criminal militia, namely, the United Arab Emirates, whose support and arms supplies exacerbate the suffering and misery of the civilians being targeted in the Sudan. The continuation of that abominable support from the United Arab Emirates is prolonging the conflict and increasing the atrocities committed against innocent civilians. Moreover, it blatantly disregards the Council’s resolutions, which we have met today to discuss, as there is no reason to maintain the Darfur sanctions if they do not include the countries involved in violating the relevant Council resolutions, namely, the United Arab Emirates and Chad. Just yesterday, based on satellite imagery taken the day before yesterday, 11 June, Yale University’s Humanitarian Studies Lab identified an IL-76 cargo plane flying over areas where the RSF militia is present, south-east of El Fasher, which, as Council members know, has been an area of active military operations since 10 May. The plane has been observed flying over the area several times and is likely one of the planes used by the United Arab Emirates to deliver weapons and military equipment to the militia. The United Arab Emirates is not only a supporter and sponsor of the militia’s war in the Sudan, but it is also a direct accomplice in the war and in the crimes and violations committed against civilians in the Sudan. We call upon the Security Council to take into account the changing dynamics in Darfur. Resolution 1591 (2005) and subsequent resolutions constitute one of the most important causes of the breach of the maintenance of security and the protection of civilians in Darfur. Those resolutions have prevented the Sudanese Armed Forces from transporting equipment and weapons to the region since 2004. The violation of those resolutions by some countries and sponsors supporting the RSF has enabled the militias to undermine law and order in Darfur. The region has become a conduit for the passage of mercenaries and fighters from the Sahel, portending the emergence of a new type of transnational terrorism — hence the need to categorize criminal militias as transnational terrorists in order to support the maintenance of international peace and security. Turning a blind eye to the new dimensions of the conflict will not make sustainable peacemaking in Sudan possible, as factors will continue to tip the region into a pattern of destructive chaos that allows terrorists and hordes of mercenaries to steal natural resources, precious minerals and livestock that should be used for the benefit of citizens in Darfur in particular and the Sudan in general. With regard to the contents of resolution 2736 (2024), I would like to emphasize the following three points. First, there is no doubt that this war has created a complex humanitarian reality, as the RSF militia has systematically and extensively targeted the civilian population and their life, dignity, security, stability and livelihoods. As a result, there is a humanitarian need that we are working to meet, in cooperation with local, regional and international humanitarian partners, led by the United Nations and its specialized agencies. In that regard, the Government of my country has opened several cross-border and cross-line humanitarian aid delivery corridors. We are committed to working constructively with humanitarian partners to facilitate the delivery of aid, in accordance with our national guidelines on humanitarian action and the guiding principles of humanitarian action set out in the relevant General Assembly resolutions. We believe that the Sudan and the United Nations share a common goal, for which we will work in a constructive and positive spirit that facilitates the flow of aid and ensures that humanitarian workers have easy access to the country and can move freely to deliver aid. It is important to note that transporting relief aid from Port Sudan to the rest of the Sudan involves covering the shortest distance and is three times less costly than transporting it through neighbouring countries. We also estimate that the amount of food in the Sudan is sufficient to cover the needs of the citizens who are in need of food. Therefore, we believe that it is better for the United Nations to purchase what is needed from the local market to minimize the cost and contribute indirectly to supporting farmers amid the current challenges. Our internal commitments to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need must be matched by donors’ fulfilment of their humanitarian pledges. We are worried that the level of fulfilment of those pledges is currently far below what is hoped for. As a result, some people in need in the Sudan have not received assistance, and some Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries are not receiving their allocated rations. We take this opportunity to extend our thanks to the countries that have contributed to funding humanitarian action in the Sudan. Secondly, the protection of our citizens during this armed conflict is not limited to the provision of humanitarian support  — rather, they must also be spared the dangers of the repercussions of the fighting. In that regard, we emphasize that the Sudan is committed to upholding its duty to protect civilians, in accordance with international humanitarian law and its principles and with international human rights law. Our armed forces operate according to rules of engagement that prioritize the protection of civilians and of civilian objects, facilities and infrastructure in a complex urban war. Our Sudanese Armed Forces have been issuing alerts through various media outlets and platforms, urging citizens to remain outside the range of legitimate military targets, among other ongoing measures to further minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects. In that regard, we would like to point out that, as part of its propaganda planning, the rebel RSF militia is spreading allegations that the warplanes are targeting civilians and infrastructure. It is doing so in order to divert attention from its own horrific crimes, which have been verified by highly credible local and international reports. In many cases, our investigations have proven that the militia deliberately synchronizes its shelling of civilian areas with Sudanese Armed Forces sorties in order to give the impression that the shelling was caused by those sorties. Thirdly and lastly, while the Government of my country has remained committed to upholding the commitments set out in the 11 May 2023 Jeddah declaration, not only has the RSF militia ignored those commitments, but it has also used the humanitarian truces agreed in Jeddah to expand its criminal military operations. The Sudanese Government adheres to the commitments reached in Jeddah, provided that the other party honours those commitments in letter and spirit.