World News | The UN and Its Partners Ramp Up Their Appeal for Peace and Aid at the 4-month Mark of Sudan's War

Geneva, Aug 15 (AP) Twenty United Nations and other international organisations on Tuesday called for peace, access to humanitarian support and respect for human rights in Sudan at the four-month mark of a war that has led to food shortages, death and injury, and sexual violence, among other troubles.

Spokeswoman Margaret Harris of the World Health Organization appealed to the global community to do more, saying at a UN briefing in Geneva: “The world is ignoring the dire needs.”

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Sudan was plunged into chaos in April when months of simmering tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open fighting in Khartoum and elsewhere.

Since then, the UN and rights groups have accused both the military and the RSF of numerous human rights violations, although both forces have rejected these accusations.

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In Darfur, the scene of genocidal war in the early 2000s, the fighting has morphed into ethnic violence, with the RSF and allied Arab militias targeting African communities in the western region, UN officials say.

Meanwhile Sudan's capital, Khartoum, has been reduced to an urban battlefield. Across the city, RSF forces have commandeered homes and turned them into operational bases, residents and doctors groups say. The army, in turn, has struck residential areas from the air and ground with artillery fire.

A host of UN organisations specializing in health, migration, refugees, human rights and food were among those who joined the call, saying that their two appeals for financial support — for a total of more than $3 billion — are less than 27 per cent funded.

At least 4,000 people are estimated to have been killed, said Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office. Activists and doctors on the ground say the death toll is likely far higher.

The war has displaced more than 4.3 million people, including some 3.2 million within the country, said William Spindler, a spokesman for the UNHCR refugee agency.

Throssell said the UN has documented at least 28 incidents of rape, but that is believed to be fewer than the actual number.

Earlier this month, Amnesty International accused both sides of committing extensive war crimes, including deliberate killings of civilians and mass sexual assault. The group said almost all rape cases were blamed on the RSF and its allied Arab militias.

The UN humanitarian aid coordinator said its appeal for USD 2.57 billion for aid into Sudan has received only USD 651 million, while UNHCR said its appeal for USD 566 million has brought in just under USD 175 million.

“For four gruesome months, the people of Sudan have been engulfed in a war that is destroying their lives and their homeland and violating their basic human rights,” leaders of the organizations said in a joint statement.

“People are dying because they cannot access health care services and medicine. And now, because of the war, Sudan's children are wasting away for lack of food and nutrition,” it said.

“Each day the fighting continues, the Sudanese are being robbed of the peace they cherish, the lives they are entitled to, and the future they deserve,” it added.

Previous attempts to halt the violence failed. There have been at least nine cease-fire agreements between the warring parties, brokered largely by Washington and Riyadh in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah during May and June, but all foundered. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)