“There are no words to describe the horror unfolding in Sudan”

Seven months to the day since war broke out in Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world.

A conflict which pits the army under the command of the head of state, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, against the “rebels” of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Dagalo.

From the first days of this war between the two strong men of the country who had agreed to take control of the institutions, there was little doubt that this conflict was set to last and that it might not end until with the disappearance of one of the two generals.

In seven months, the fighting has left at least 9,000 dead according to an estimate by the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled). A figure unanimously considered to be largely underestimated. This war also threw more than 6 million displaced people into exile and destroyed most of the country’s infrastructure.

”Total horror”

Intense fighting has taken place in and around the capital Khartoum in recent days, as well as in Darfur in western Sudan. Every day brings its share of massacres, shelling and deadly air strikes. Last week, several testimonies spoke of numerous corpses dressed in military uniforms littering the ground in a district of Khartoum, while a shell hit Al-Nau hospital, in the north of Omdurman, the last operational medical establishment of the region.

Started at the end of October, a new round of negotiations sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the United States ended at the end of last week without leading to an agreement on a cease-fire.

Violence in Sudan borders on “absolute evil”alerted a UN official, worrying in particular about “violence which appears to be based on ethnicity, in Darfur”.

”We keep saying that the situation is horrible and grim. But frankly, we are at a loss for words to describe the horrors happening in Sudan,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, UN humanitarian coordinator in the country, said at a press conference.

“Ethnic cleansing” in Darfur

At the start of the week, the European Union (EU) said “appalled” It front of “credible testimonies” reporting “more than 1,000 dead” in just over two days in Darfur, western Sudan, in what appears to be a campaign of “ethnic cleansing”.

”The latest atrocities appear to be part of a broader ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the RSF with the aim of eradicating the non-Arab Masalit tribe from West Darfur. declared the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell in a press release. They come “add to a first wave of large-scale violence” in June, he said.

The EU “work” notably “with the International Criminal Court to establish and document human rights violations to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable”according to the press release, which goes on to recall that the belligerents “have a duty to protect citizens”.

”The international community cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening in Darfur and allow another genocide to occur in the region,” warned Brussels again, after that of the early 2000s.