Fatimah Otunsanya
Sudan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Al-Harith Idris, on Thursday called on the UN Security Council to designate the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as a terrorist organization and to demand their immediate withdrawal from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.
Speaking during a Security Council session on the situation in Sudan, Idris urged the Council to “launch an investigation into the genocide committed against the residents of El Fasher,” and to “criminalize all those who deal with the RSF or supply them with weapons or mercenaries.”
He called on the Council to “clearly and unequivocally condemn the massacres perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces militia, its foreign mercenaries, and its supporters,” and to enforce compliance with Resolution 2736, which calls for the lifting of the RSF’s siege on El Fasher and an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Citing data from the World Health Organisation, Idris said that “around 500 patients were killed at the Saudi Hospital in El Fasher,” describing it as the city’s last functioning medical facility.
He warned that “civilians in El Fasher were either exterminated within the city or killed while fleeing it,” accusing the RSF of committing atrocities amounting to genocide.
The RSF captured El Fasher earlier this week after a prolonged siege, triggering mass displacement and international alarm over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region.