UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner Nada Al-Nashif said Tuesday the warring parties in the Sudan conflict are acting with “total disregard for international law.”
Al-Nashif spoke at the 57th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva which is addressing various global issues including political unrest, regression on women’s rights and, freedom of press and expression.
“Our office is particularly alarmed by the use since the beginning of the conflict of sexual violence as a weapon of war. We have documented 97 incidents involving 172 victims, predominantly women and girls, which is a gross under-representation of the reality,” Al-Nashif said.
Last week, U.N.-backed human rights investigators urged the creation of an “independent and impartial force” to protect civilians in Sudan’s war, blaming both sides for war crimes including murder, mutilation and torture and warning that foreign governments which arm and finance them could be complicit.
The fact-finding team, in their first report since being created by the U.N.’s main human rights body in October, also accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which are fighting Sudan’s army, and its allies of crimes against humanity, including rape, sexual slavery and persecution on ethnic or gender grounds.
The experts called for the expansion of an arms embargo on Sudan’s long-restive western Darfur region to the entire country.
The findings from the team mandated by the 47-country Human Rights Council come as more than 10 million people have been driven from their homes — including more than 2 million to neighboring countries — and famine has broken out in one large camp for displaced people in Darfur.
The conflict that erupted in April 2023 has killed thousands of people, and humanitarian groups are struggling to gain access to people in need.
In December, the U.N. Security Council voted to end the world body’s political mission in the country under pressure from the military leadership.
