SUDAN WATCH: UAE

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Thursday, October 30, 2025

Sudan: Briefing and Consultations 30th Oct 2025

From Security Council Report

Dated Wednesday 29 Oct 2025 - excerpt:

Sudan: Briefing and Consultations

Tomorrow morning (30 October), the Security Council is expected to hold an open briefing, followed by closed consultations, on Sudan.

It appears that the meeting had been previously scheduled for early November, in keeping with resolution 2715 of 1 December 2023, which called for the Council to be briefed every 120 days on “UN efforts to support Sudan on its path towards peace and stability”.

However, the UK (the penholder on the file), Denmark, and the “A3 Plus” members (Algeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Guyana) requested that the date of the meeting be moved forward because of the dire situation in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher and Assistant Secretary-General for Africa in the Departments of5 Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations (DPPA-DPO) Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee are expected to brief in the open chamber.

Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Sudan Ramtane Lamamra is expected to brief members via videoconference (VTC) in the closed consultations, while Fletcher may participate in the closed session as well.

A draft press statement proposed by the UK and the A3 Plus members, which expresses Council members’ concern about the violence in and around El Fasher, is under silence procedure until tomorrow morning.

Earlier this month, fighting escalated in El Fasher as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched an assault on the 6th Infantry Division headquarters of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), reportedly capturing it on 26 October and forcing SAF and allied troops to retreat to the western neighbourhoods of the city.

The RSF subsequently seized large parts of El Fasher, effectively ending an 18-month-long siege and taking control of the SAF’s last stronghold in the Darfur region.

The civilian population has borne the brunt of the siege, with hospitals, schools, religious sites, and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) targeted indiscriminately and starvation reported in the city.

In a 27 October press release, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) described reports of summary executions of civilians attempting to flee El Fasher, with indications of ethnic motivations for killings. It further cited reports of the killing of persons no longer participating in hostilities, including unarmed men accused of being SAF fighters.

In a 24 October statement after a visit to Sudan, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said that 130,000 children in El Fasher are “trapped, cut off from food, water, and healthcare”, adding that women and children who have been able to flee the siege have faced harassment and attacks.

Chaiban also described conditions in other parts of the country—where children continue to face malnutrition, violence, and exposure to diseases such as cholera—stressing that “Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis”.

Tomorrow, the briefers and Council members are expected to underscore the gravity of the crisis in Sudan, echoing concerns expressed in recent days by the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), and other key international actors.

The briefers and Council members are likely to condemn the effects of the fighting in El Fasher on the civilian population, including reports of summary executions.

They are also expected to urge the parties to allow the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid into El Fasher, as well as other parts of Sudan affected by the conflict, and call on them to adhere to their responsibilities under international law, including with respect to the protection of civilians.

Concerns may also be raised tomorrow about the 21 October threat by RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to target planes or drones from neighbouring countries that the RSF believes are supporting the SAF.

While Dagalo did not specify which states he was referencing, the RSF and its supporters have accused several countries in the region of backing the SAF.

This statement was made on the same day that the RSF reportedly launched drone attacks in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, including on areas near the international airport, just a day before domestic flights were scheduled to resume for the first time since the outbreak of fighting in April 2023. These attacks reportedly continued over the following days.

Full story:

https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2025/10/sudan-briefing-and-consultations-12.php

Update:

WATCH a UN recording of the full meeting here:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/10/1166222
- at the bottom of the screen slide bar to 17:50 for start of meeting;
- click on settings wheel & audio to select preferred language & speed.

End

Sudan siege ends in bloodbath despite pleas for mercy. Evidence emerges of atrocities committed by paramilitary RSF after it seized control of El Fasher

Report from The Financial Times
By William Wallis in Cairo
Published Wednesday 29 October 2025 - full copy:

Sudan siege ends in bloodbath despite pleas for mercy

Evidence emerges of atrocities committed by the paramilitary RSF after it seized control of El Fasher

A camp for displaced families who fled from El Fasher to Tawila in North Darfur © Mohammed Jamal/Reuters

The fall of the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher has turned into a bloodbath that rights activists and experts have foretold for months, according to local and international organisations monitoring the war.

Since Sunday — when militia fighters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) over-ran the military garrison in the city, the last stronghold of the Sudan Armed Forces in the west of the country — evidence has emerged of many atrocities against civilians trapped or trying to flee.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was receiving multiple, alarming reports, including of summary executions committed by the RSF, since the group seized most of El Fasher in the western region of Darfur. The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, is vying for control of all of Sudan.

“Multiple distressing videos received by UN Human Rights show dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters,” the UN said.

Jim Risch, Republican chair of the US Senate foreign relations committee, said on X that the RSF should be designated a foreign terrorist organisation.

“The horrors in Darfur’s El Fasher were no accident — they were the RSF’s plan all along,” he said. “The RSF has waged terror and committed unspeakable atrocities, genocide among them, against the Sudanese people . . . America is not safer, secure or more prosperous with the RSF slaughtering thousands.”

The RSF’s capture of El Fasher has potentially far-reaching consequences for Sudan and its two-year civil war.

The conflict has displaced more than 14mn people, according to the UN, provoked famine and claimed more than 150,000 lives.

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, is head of the RSF

El Fasher is the largest city in western Sudan and sits at a crossroads of trade routes, giving the RSF greater control of the flow of weapons and supplies into the region through Libya and Chad.

The end of the siege, and the flight of the SAF and allied former rebels on Sunday, potentially frees up RSF militants to take the fight back to areas of the east and centre of Sudan from which they were driven earlier this year.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military leader and Hemedti’s rival, on Monday said the army had withdrawn as a result of the “systematic destruction they endured” in the city.

The killings that have ensued, despite repeated warnings based on previous massacres committed by the RSF, marks a new low for decades-long international efforts to protect civilians from war crimes.

In videos posted online in the past two days, fighters from the RSF, which grew out of the Janjaweed militia that wreaked havoc on Darfur’s Black tribes in the early part of the century, shout racial slurs and revel in pursuing rake-thin men, women and children fleeing across the scrub outside the city.

Satellite image shows objects on the ground near what are likely to be RSF vehicles in El Fasher on Monday © AP

Dozens of captured men, bound and lying in rows along the ground, are denigrated and then executed in footage allegedly posted from RSF accounts.

Among those captured was Muammar Ibrahim, a freelance journalist who has chronicled the fate of civilians trapped in the city during a nearly 19-month siege. Inhabitants depended on dwindling supplies of animal feed and were under constant drone and artillery bombardment.

Many advocacy groups have been demanding the release of the Al Jazeera contributor.

Among those killed on Sunday, according to Sudanese activists in touch with the city and surrounding camps for the displaced, was Siham Hassan, a prominent campaigner for social justice. She was once Sudan’s youngest MP and was running a community kitchen.

Nathaniel Redmond, director of the Yale school of public health, said on Tuesday that the “horror, scale and velocity of killing” in El Fasher had left pools of blood visible from satellites.

Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab — which has been tracking the siege using satellite imagery, open-source online information and testimony from eyewitnesses — said it had found “multiple credible reports of mass killings across social media and open sources” in recent days.

Satellite imagery showing bodies on the ground and “vehicles in tactical formations consistent with house-to-house clearance operations” in a neighbourhood with thousands of civilians also supported allegations that the RSF had carried out mass killings, Yale’s HRL said.

“The world must act immediately to put the maximum amount of pressure on the RSF and its backers, specifically the [United Arab Emirates], to end the killing now,” it said, adding that the RSF’s actions “may be consistent with war crimes and crimes against humanity and may rise to the level of genocide”.

Sudanese refugees from Zamzam camp outside El Fasher receive food at an emergency kitchen while being relocated to a transit camp near the Chad border in Tine, eastern Chad, in May © Getty Images

“The nations of the world might be able to say that they could not have stopped it, but they cannot reasonably say that they did not know,” Yale’s HRL said.

The RSF said it was committed to “protecting civilians in El Fasher”, and had deployed specialised teams to clear landmines and “secure the streets and public spaces”.

It described the “liberation” of El Fasher as “a milestone in the Sudanese people’s struggle against oppression and terrorism”.

The parallel government launched under Hemedti in Darfur said it condemned any violations and would establish committees to investigate the veracity of videos of atrocities circulating online.

Western officials, including the UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper and Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s adviser on Arab and African affairs, urged the militia to open up the area to humanitarian access and to “protect civilians”. But these entreaties from afar have had little obvious effect on the fighters on the ground.

Critics of the west’s ineffectual response to the Sudanese civil war said that only severe pressure on the UAE, which has allegedly backed the RSF with weapons supplies and trade in gold but denies involvement, could prevent further atrocities in El Fasher.

“It is beyond an open secret that the United Arab Emirates is arming and supporting the RSF,” said Protection Approaches, a UK-based charity that campaigns against identity-based violence.

“The single most effective action that could bring pause to the massacre in El Fasher is for the right call from Abu Dhabi to be placed to RSF leadership,” it added.

View original: https://www.ft.com/content/19d7f37b-cffe-4bf1-a64c-a88535ae017c#comments-anchor

End

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Sudan's former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok says recent military gains won't end the country's conflict

HAMDOK, a 69-year-old former economist who now leads a civilian coalition from exile, called the idea that the conflict was drawing down “total nonsense.” The idea that reconstruction can begin in Khartoum while fighting rages elsewhere is “absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

“Any attempt at creating a government in Sudan today is fake. It is irrelevant,” he said, arguing that lasting peace can't be secured without addressing the root causes of the war. Read more.

From The Associated Press (AP)

By SAM METZ

North Africa reporter for AP

Dated 05 June 2025; 2:06 AM BST - full copy:

Former Prime Minister Hamdok says the military’s recent gains won’t end Sudan’s civil war

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok speaks during a session of the summit to support Sudan, at the Grand Palais Ephemere in Paris on May 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, Pool, File)

MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — Sudan’s former prime minister on Wednesday dismissed the military’s moves to form a new government as “fake,” saying its recent victories in recapturing the capital Khartoum and other territory will not end the country’s two-year civil war.

In a rare interview with The Associated Press, Abdalla Hamdok said no military victory, in Khartoum or elsewhere, could end the war that has killed tens of thousands and driven millions from their homes.

“Whether Khartoum is captured or not captured, it’s irrelevant,” Hamdok said on the sidelines of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s governance conference in Morocco. “There is no military solution to this. No side will be able to have outright victory.”

Hamdok became Sudan’s first civilian prime minister after decades of military rule in 2019, trying to lead a democratic transition. He resigned in January 2022 after a turbulent stretch in which he was ousted in a coup and briefly reinstated amid international pressure.

The following year, warring generals plunged the country into civil war. Sudan today bears the grim distinction of being home to some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has left at least 24,000 dead, though many believe the true toll is far worse.

Both sides stand accused of war crimes.

The RSF, with roots in Darfur’s notorious Janjaweed militia, has been accused of carrying out genocide. The army is accused of unleashing chemical weapons and targeting civilians where they live.

The war has driven about 13 million people from their homes, including 4 million who have crossed into neighboring countries. Famine is setting in and cholera is sweeping through.

The military recaptured the Khartoum area from the RSF in March, as well as some surrounding territory. Army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan has framed the advances as a major turning point in the conflict.

Last month, he appointed a new prime minister, Kamil al-Taib Idris, for the first time since the war began, tasked with forming a new government. But the fighting has continued. The RSF has regrouped in its stronghold in Darfur and made advances elsewhere, including in Kordofan.

Hamdok, a 69-year-old former economist who now leads a civilian coalition from exile, called the idea that the conflict was drawing down “total nonsense.” The idea that reconstruction can begin in Khartoum while fighting rages elsewhere is “absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

“Any attempt at creating a government in Sudan today is fake. It is irrelevant,” he said, arguing that lasting peace can’t be secured without addressing the root causes of the war.

Hamdok said a ceasefire and a credible process to restore democratic, civilian rule would need to confront Sudan’s deep inequalities, including uneven development, issues among different identity groups and questions about the role of religion in government.

“Trusting the soldiers to bring democracy is a false pretense,” he added.

Though rooted in longstanding divisions, the war has been supercharged by foreign powers accused of arming both sides.

Pro-democracy groups, including Hamdok’s Somoud coalition, have condemned atrocities committed by both the army and the RSF. Hamdok, however, has avoided accusing the United Arab Emirates of supplying weapons to the RSF, even amid international scrutiny and an investigation from a U.N. panel of experts.

On Wednesday, he rebuffed AP questions about weapons coming from the UAE. He said those who singled out the Gulf state while ignoring others accused of backing the army, including Iran, were “pushing a narrative.”

“What we would like to see is anybody who is supplying arms to any side to stop,” he said.