Over 20,000 killed in Sudan's war, says UN health chief
The World Health Organization's director-general said Sudan is suffering through of a "perfect storm of crises," including conflict, famine conditions and a recent cholera outbreak.
More than a year of civil war in Sudan has killed more than 20,000 people, the World Health Organization said Sunday, following a United Nations report that accused the warring parties of possible war crimes.
“Sudan is suffering through a perfect storm of crises,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters during a visit to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. “It saddens me that the crisis is not getting the attention it deserves by [from] the international community.”
Sudan has been engulfed in violence since mid-April 2023, when a power struggle between its top generals descended into full-blown war. More than 16 months of fighting between forces loyal to the country’s de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the Sudanese Armed Forces, and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Ghebreyesus met Burhan during his two-day visit and inaugurated a WHO office in Port Sudan to help with the crisis.
Held talks with Lt. Gen. Abdul Fatah Al-Burhan, President of #Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, on the health impacts of the conflict raging throughout the country.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) September 8, 2024
We both agreed on the vital importance of ensuring sustained access across borders and within the… pic.twitter.com/kLTyl67s28
The conflict, which has spread to 14 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, has displaced more than 13 million people, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration. Of them, 2.3 million have been forced to flee to neighboring countries.
The World Food Programme says more than 25 million people are facing acute hunger, and famine has been confirmed in a displacement camp housing hundreds of thousands of people in North Darfur. A recent outbreak of cholera from contaminated water supplies has killed at least 165 people across Sudan, the country’s Health Ministry said Friday.
“The scale of the emergency is shocking, as is the insufficient action taken to curtail the conflict,” Ghebreyesus said.
A UN fact-finding mission on Friday called for an “independent and impartial" peacekeeping force to protect civilians after documenting a range of "harrowing" human rights violations that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The mission’s 19-page report, which was based on 182 interviews, said the SAF, RSF and their respective allies carried out attacks against civilians, including through airstrikes and shelling that targeted schools, hospitals, communication networks and water and electricity supplies. The report recommended expanding an existing UN arms embargo, which currently applies only to the western region of Darfur, to cover the entire territory of Sudan.
The United States invited Sudan’s warring parties to peace negotiations in Geneva last month, but the Sudanese army declined to send a delegation and the talks ended without a breakthrough. Tom Perriello, US special envoy for Sudan, embarked Sunday on a regional tour aimed at advancing cease-fire efforts. The State Department said Perriello will meet with government officials as well as Sudanese refugees and civilian leaders during stops in Riyadh, Cairo and Ankara.
