US asks that countries stop providing weapons to Sudan

The United States has asked other countries to stop selling weapons to Sudan so that the fighting stops in Darfur. They said that what happened in Darfur 20 years ago might happen again.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after a secret meeting of the UN Security Council that El Fasher, the only capital in Darfur not controlled by paramilitary forces, is “on the edge of a big massacre. ”

She asked every country to pay attention to the serious situation that is developing. Britain’s deputy ambassador, James Kariuki, also said that Sudan does not need more problems on top of the conflict that has been happening for a year.

Thomas-Greenfield said that there are believable reports that a group called the Rapid Support Forces and their friends have destroyed a lot of villages to the west of El Fasher and are getting ready to attack El Fasher soon.

“Attacking El Fasher would be very bad, putting the 2 million people who live there and 500,000 Sudanese refugees at risk. ” – Thomas-Greenfield warned.

Thomas-Greenfield asked the paramilitary forces called the RSF to stop surrounding El Fasher and not to attack the city.

She asked the RSF and the other government forces to quickly decrease the violence and talk to each other. She also said they should keep people safe and let aid workers help the five million Sudanese who are very hungry and the 10 million others who need help.

Sudan became very chaotic in the middle of April 2023 when the military, led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan and the RSF paramilitary, led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, started fighting in the streets of the capital, Khartoum. Violence has moved to more places in the country, especially cities and the Darfur area.

The head of the UN said that the war has been going on for a year and is being made worse by weapons from other countries, even though the UN has rules in place to stop this from happening. She said that it is wrong and against the law and needs to be stopped.

She didn’t tell who the foreign supporters were.

Burhan, who took control of Sudan’s military in 2021, is a good friend of Egypt and its president, former army leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. In February, the foreign minister of Sudan met with the foreign minister of Iran in Tehran. There were rumors about Sudan buying drones for their government forces, but this has not been confirmed.

Dagalo, the leader of the RSF, is said to have gotten help from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group. The RSF has been getting help from Arab allied groups and new military supply routes in Chad, Libya, and South Sudan, according to UN experts.

Thomas-Greenfield said Monday that countries in the area need to stop giving weapons to the fighting groups, as the UN rules say. She told reporters that the United States will keep pushing them to do this.

She said that the United States has talked to the United Arab Emirates, but they have said they didn’t give any weapons to Sudan.

The UN’s DiCarlo said the war has had a very bad effect – over 14,000 people have died, tens of thousands have been hurt, there is a big risk of not having enough food with 25 million people needing help to stay alive, and over 8. 6 million people have had to leave their homes.

During the war, the Arab-led RSF have attacked people in Darfur, especially the Masalit ethnic group. They have taken over most of the area, with El Fasher as their latest target.

Twenty years ago, Darfur became known for mass killings and crimes during a war. Arab militias, called the Janjaweed, targeted people from Central or East Africa. Around 300,000 people died and 2.7 million were forced to leave their homes.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in January that there are reasons to believe that both sides in Darfur may be committing very serious crimes like war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide.

The RSF were made up of Janjaweed fighters by the old Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled for 30 years until he was overthrown in 2019. The ICC wants him for doing very bad things during a war in Darfur in the 2000s.