An emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, called Monday to discuss Sudan’s catastrophic civil war, raised widespread concerns but failed to discuss measures to stop the fighting or ease the crisis. which aid agencies have called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the people of Sudan are living a “nightmare of violence, hunger and displacement,” while countless others face “unspeakable atrocities,” including widespread rape. He highlighted “shocking reports of massacres and sexual violence” in villages in the east-central province of Gezira, where paramilitary fighters, in a days-long assault, killed more than 120 people in a city.

Guterres said outside powers are “fueling the fire” and intensifying the nightmare of hunger and disease for millions and warned that the 18-month-old civil war seriously risks “triggering regional instability in the Sahel to the Horn of Africa via the red region. Sea.”

The emergency session follows last month’s UN fact-finding mission, which said both sides in the conflict had likely committed war crimes, including targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid , during this civil war which has now lasted 18 months.

Fighting broke out in April 2023 between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sovereign Council and de facto ruler of the country, and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (better known as Hemedti) who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support. Armed Forces (RSF). The UN mission said the RSF had also likely committed crimes against humanity and called for the deployment of an independent peacekeeping force to protect civilians.

The RSF, based in the western region of Darfur, took control of the west of the country and most of the capital Khartoum. Al-Burhan, which enjoys the support of the Egyptian military regime, South Sudan and Saudi Arabia, and what remains of the civilian authorities, have retreated east to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where they established a quasi-government in exile.

The two factions, composed of rival sub-ethnic groups with divergent interests, enjoy the support of various local militias as well as the support of ever-changing outside forces, with Egypt (until forced to back down by its payer, the United Arab Emirates), Saudi Arabia. , Eritrea and more recently Iran support al-Burhan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Russian Wagner Group support the RSF and mobilize their regional allies in Libya, Chad and South Sudan. Russia has largely adopted a neutral stance and recently supported al-Burhan. This led to fighting along ethnic lines that evolved into five or six different wars, with local militias taking control of the northern part of the country, with the potential to divide the country and spill over and exacerbate conflicts. in neighboring countries.