The United Nations' top rights body on Friday adopted a resolution ordering an independent fact-finding mission to urgently investigate reports of human rights violations in the Sudanese city of El Fasher, where paramilitary forces are accused of mass killings and other atrocities.
The text also called on the investigative team to identify suspected perpetrators where possible in a bid to ensure they are held accountable.
The decision came at the end of a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on Sudan, called amid mounting warnings of crimes against humanity and the risk of genocide.
In an opening address to delegates in Geneva, the UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged the international community to act.
"There has been too much pretence and performance, and too little action. It must stand up against these atrocities – a display of naked cruelty used to subjugate and control an entire population," Turk said.
Since breaking out in April 2023, the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million more and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
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The violence has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, with the RSF seizing control of the key town of El Fasher in Sudan's western Darfur region after an 18-month siege.
Reports have emerged of executions, sexual violence, looting, attacks on aid workers and abductions in and around the city, where communications remain largely cut off.
The RSF has denied targeting civilians or blocking aid, saying any such actions are the work of rogue actors.
Cycle of impunity
British ambassador Kumar Iyer, whose country requested the special session along with Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway, insisted that "the scale and severity of the crisis in Sudan can no longer be met with silence".
"The violence in El-Fasher bears the hallmarks of a coordinated campaign against civilians by the Rapid Support Forces," he said, pointing to "credible reports of actively targeted killings, systematic sexual violence, and the deliberate use of starvation".
Before Friday's resolution was adopted, he urged countries to green-light an investigation: "Without it, accountability will remain out of reach and the cycle of impunity will continue."
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The text was adopted by consensus without a vote, although several countries, including Sudan, distanced themselves from sections broadening the scope of the fact-finding mission's investigation.
The UN estimates that nearly 100,000 have fled El Fasher in the past two weeks, many going to the town of Tawila, about 50 kilometres away, or even across the border to Chad.
"Information gathered indicates that hundreds of women and girls were raped and gang-raped along escape routes, including in public, without fear of repercussions or accountability," Mona Rishmawi, from the UN's independent fact-finding mission on Sudan, told Friday's session.
Adama Dieng, the African Union's special envoy and the UN special adviser for the prevention of genocide, warned that "the risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real and it is growing every single day."
'Existential war'
Sudanese ambassador Hassan Hamid Hassan cautioned that his country was caught up in "an existential war".
He accused the United Arab Emirates of "supporting [the RSF] with military and strategic equipment", something the UAE denies.
UAE ambassador Jamal Jama Al Musharakh criticised both the paramilitaries and the Sudanese army, accusing the latter of "indiscriminate attacks on markets, villages and hospitals, amid famine, while ignoring international calls for a truce".
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Much of Friday's discussion revolved around the need to ensure accountability. Turk warned that the International Criminal Court had indicated it wasfollowing the situation closely.
He also said that "despicable disregard for civilian lives" was becoming apparent in the Kordofan region that borders Darfur.
Kordofan is comprised of three states that serves as a buffer between the RSF's western Darfur strongholds and the army-held states in the east.
"Kordofan must not suffer the same fate as Darfur," Turk said.
(with newswires)
