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Air strikes kill dozens in Darfur as UN's Sudan chief resigns
An air raid on Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region killed at least 40 civilians Wednesday, according to a medical source, as the head of the UN mission to the country resigned.
By:Volker Perthes, who has been "persona non grata" by Sudanese authorities since June, warned the United Nations Security Council again, in his final briefing before leaving the post, that Sudan's war risks further deterioration.
"Forty civilians have been killed in an air strike that hit two markets and a number of the city's neighbourhoods," the medical source told AFP from a hospital in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. The source asked for anonymity out of security concerns.
Since battles began on April 15 between the regular army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, nearly 7,500 people have been killed, according to a conservative estimate from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
More than five million people have been uprooted, including one million who fled across borders, according to UN figures.
Intensified fighting
Witnesses in Nyala had reported earlier on Wednesday air strikes falling on two markets and causing civilian casualties in Sudan's second-biggest city.
The western region of Darfur -- the size of France and home to a quarter of Sudan's population -- had already seen some of the war's worst unrest before violence intensified last month.
Over 10 days in August, more than 50,000 people fled the city, according to the UN.
In early September, those who remained looked up to see a new escalation: air force fighter jets -- whose strikes have been largely limited to the capital Khartoum -- flying overhead.
Their bombs struck both RSF bases and the residential neighbourhoods they inhabit, witnesses told AFP.
Read moreSudanese leader’s diplomatic tour renews hopes for a peace deal
The army maintains control of the skies, and has been accused of repeated indiscriminate shelling of residential areas where paramilitaries have embedded themselves, including by evicting families and taking over homes.
Positioning themselves in civilian occupied neighbourhoods and buildings is "a potential violation of the Geneva Conventions," the US-supported Sudan Conflict Observatory has said.
It added that the Sudanese Armed Forces "would still be required to ensure that civilian harm is minimised regardless of whether a target has been made a legitimate military target."
Wednesday's attack came a day after a medical source reported 17 civilians killed in Khartoum's sister city of Omdurman. Witnesses described that attack as RSF shelling.
On Sunday, at least 51 people were killed and dozens wounded in air strikes on southern Khartoum, according to UN human rights chief Volker Turk.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called it "the deadliest weekend witnessed by our teams in Khartoum since the beginning of the conflict, five months ago."
Call for accountability
In the war's early months, diplomatic efforts repeatedly failed to establish a sustained ceasefire and were instead "often used for repositioning and resupply" by both parties, Perthes told the Security Council.
Perthes has been repeatedly accused by Burhan and his allies of bias towards the RSF.
He has been persona non grata since he denounced possible "crimes against humanity" in Darfur.
The government repeatedly called for Perthes's dismissal, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his support for the envoy.
On Wednesday Guterres accepted the resignation of Perthes, saying "he has very strong reasons."
A UN team remains in Port Sudan, a coastal city spared the fighting.
"I am grateful to the Secretary-General for that opportunity and for his confidence in me, but I have asked him to relieve me of this duty," Perthes said, warning that the conflict "could be morphing into a full-scale civil war."
He added that the warring parties "cannot operate with impunity, and there will be accountability for the crimes committed."
While the deadly air strikes fell on Darfur Wednesday, witnesses in the capital also reported "columns of smoke rising" in central Khartoum as armed forces fighter jets "targeted RSF bases" in that area.
Until late last month, Burhan had been holed up in army headquarters, under siege by the RSF.
From his new base in Port Sudan, he has since visited Egypt, South Sudan, Qatar and Eritrea in what analysts say is a diplomatic push to burnish his credentials in the event of negotiations to end the war.
Burhan arrived in Turkey on Wednesday for his fifth trip abroad since late August, vying for legitimacy in his power struggle with Daglo.
Burhan has been de facto head of state since he led a 2021 coup in collaboration with the RSF's Daglo.
The army chief held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on "the course of bilateral relations and advancing the prospects for joint cooperation" between the two countries, according to Sudan's ruling Sovereign Council.
(AFP)
Sudan conflict could become 'full-scale civil war,'
U.N. envoy warns as he resigns
By Darryl Coote
Sept. 14 (UPI) -- The five-month-old bloody conflict in Sudan shows no sign of abating and could be "morphing into a full-scale civil war," the United Nations envoy to the northeast African country said during a speech to the Security Council in which he announced his resignation.
Volker Perthes has served as the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan since early 2021, but was labeled persona non grata by Sudan's foreign ministry in June, seemingly on accusations of stoking the conflict, which erupted mid-April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and its breakaway Rapid Support Forces.
Days before being barred from the country, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "shocked" by a letter he had received from Sudan's military leader Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Burhan that reportedly called for Perthes to be removed.
In his speech before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, Perthes offered no reason for stepping down but said it had been "a privilege" to serve as Guterres' representative.
During a press conference later Wednesday, Guterres said he had accepted Perthes' resignation.
"He has very strong reasons to resign and I have to respect his will and accept his resignation," the U.N. chief said.
Guterres has previously voiced support for Perthes, and said in response to al-Burhan's letter sent in May that he is "proud of the work done" by the German official and "reaffirms his full confidence in his special representative."
For years, Sudan had teetered on the precipice of war following the ousting of the country's former three-decade dictator government of President Omar al-Bashir in a civilian-backed coup in 2019.
Amid its crawl toward civil rule, al-Burhan and his deputy, RSF head Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, executed another coup but infighting over control of the government turned into bloodshed on April 15.
During his speech to the council Wednesday, Perthes said with neither side appearing close to a military victory, there are no signs of the conflict coming to an end, with fierce fighting continuing in the capital of Khartoum where on Sunday a SAF airstrike killed at least 43 people.
At least 5,000 people have been killed in the fighting and more than 12,000 injured, but Perthes said Wednesday that the actual numbers are likely much higher.
With fighting continuing in the capital, violence worsening in Darfur, civilians being targeted due to their ethnicity, tensions deepening in the relatively calm east of the country and former regime elements calling for the continuation of the war, Perthes said these developments add to "the risk of a fragmentation of the country.
"What started as a conflict between two military formations could be morphing into a full-scale civil war," he said
"Each side is still waiting for the other side to be weakened into surrender. This is futile," he said. "The war is destroying the lives of the Sudanese men and women, violating their basic rights and depriving them of the future they deserve.
He continued that the conflict is leaving a "tragic legacy" of human rights abuses committed by both sides, including indiscriminate killings by the SAF and widespread acts of sexual violence, lootings and killings in areas controlled by the RSF, while both are arbitrarily arresting, detaining and torturing civilians
"We need to impress on the warring parties that they cannot operate with impunity, and there will be accountability for the crimes committed," he said
Edem Wosornu, director for operations and advocacy of the United Nations office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the council that the number of displaced in Sudan now stands at more than 5 million, equalling 1 million people newly displaced every month
Of those, 1 million have fled across borders into neighboring countries
The fighting, she said, has also put civilians at risk due to an "almost complete breakdown" of the healthcare system, which is "making it almost impossible to control increasing outbreaks of diseases."
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