RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has condemned on Saturday the recent flare-up of violence in the eastern side of Sudan’s Al Jazeera State, which caused deaths among civilians.
The foreign ministry, in a statement, expressed the Kingdom’s concern over the continued escalation of fighting in Sudan that has impacted women and children, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
Saudi Arabia “condemns the recent [violence] in the eastern part of Al-Jazeera State, which resulted in a number of deaths and injuries among civilians, as this constitutes a violation of international law and the principle of protecting civilians.”
The Kingdom has also “urged the warring parties to ceasefire, end the conflict and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to those affected. The Kingdom reaffirms its position in supporting the stability and unity of Sudan.”
Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital Khartoum and spread to other regions including western Darfur.
The war has killed more than 24,000 people so far, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group monitoring the conflict since it started.
Britain, which assumed the presidency on Friday of the Security Council for November, said the 15-member body would meet in Sudan on Nov. 12 to discuss “scaling up aid delivery and ensuring greater protection of civilians by all sides.”
“We will be shortly introducing a draft Security Council resolution ... to drive forward progress on this,” Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward told a press conference.
She said the draft would focus on “developing a compliance mechanism for the warring parties’ commitments they made on the protection of civilians in Jeddah over a year ago in 2023 and ways to support mediation efforts to deliver a ceasefire, even if we start local ceasefires before moving to a national one.”
A resolution needs at least 9 votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, Russia or China to be adopted.
The move comes as a three-month approval given by Sudanese authorities for the UN and aid groups to use the Adre border crossing with Chad to reach Darfur with humanitarian assistance is due to expire in mid-November.
• With agencies
