UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he is deeply concerned by reports of harassment, intimidation and arbitrary detention of displaced people at checkpoints in Sudan’s North Darfur.
In a status update through his spokesman on Wednesday, Stéphane Dujarric, Guterres said he was appalled by the increasingly catastrophic situation in North Darfur as deadly attacks continued on its capital, El Fasher. This comes just two weeks after an assault on the famine-stricken Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps, which reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, including humanitarian workers.
The secretary-general said that despite ongoing insecurity and severe funding shortfalls, the UN and its humanitarian partners were doing what they could to urgently scale up emergency support in the Tawila area of North Darfur, which is hosting most of those displaced from Zamzam.
Guterres stressed that the scale of needs was overwhelming, with reports of desperate people — mostly women and children — crossing the border into Chad in search of safety and assistance.
Violence against civilians was also reportedly continuing in other parts of Sudan, including mass killings in Omdurman in Khartoum State in recent days.
With the conflict now in its third year and increasingly destabilizing the broader region, the secretary-general reiterated his call for safe and unhindered humanitarian access to all areas in need by all routes, as well as for the protection of civilians, in line with the parties’ obligations under international humanitarian law.
The perpetrators of serious violations, Guterres said, must be held accountable.
“The secretary-general renews his call for an immediate cease-fire and urges the international community to act with urgency to help end the relentless suffering and destruction,” he said.