PORT SUDAN: The United Nations human rights chief warned Friday that the war in Sudan is becoming “more dangerous” for civilians, following reports from rights groups of army-allied militias carrying out ethnic-based attacks on minorities in Al-Jazira state.
The “Sudan conflict (is) taking more dangerous turn for civilians,” UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk said on social media platform X, adding that “there is evidence of... war crimes and other atrocity crimes.”
The Sudanese army, at war with rival paramilitaries since April 2023, led an offensive this week on Al-Jazira state, recapturing its capital Wad Madani from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Rights groups said on Monday that at least 13 people including two children were killed in ethnically-targeted attacks against minority communities in the agricultural state.
Though the RSF has become notorious for alleged ethnic-based violence, reports have also emerged of civilians being targeted on the basis of ethnicity in army-controlled areas.
On Thursday, the US treasury department announced sanctions against army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals, as well as using food deprivation as a weapon of war.
It came a week after the US also slapped sanctions on RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, accusing his group of committing genocide.
Responding to recent reports from US officials of the Sudanese army using chemical weapons in Sudan, spokesperson of the UN human rights chief Ravina Shamdasani said Friday that due to limited access, the UN “has not specifically documented” such practices during the war.
At a briefing on Friday, Shamdasani described the reports as “very worrying,” adding that “they do require further investigation.”
She said what the UN has documented is “the use of extremely heavy weaponry in populated areas,” including air strikes on marketplaces.
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.
The war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 12 million and pushed the country to the brink of famine, creating what the United Nations describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
In its latest reports, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that over 120,000 people have fled the ongoing violence in the southern Sudanese states of Blue Nile, White Nile and Sennar to South Sudan since early December 2024.
