By Emma Farge
GENEVA, July 6 (Reuters) – The U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday passed a motion condemning the escalating violence committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s al-Obeid and setting up an urgent inquiry into alleged abuses there.
Britain, which brought the motion alongside 14 other states, has previously warned of the risk of large-scale atrocities as the RSF massed forces around one of Sudan’s largest cities, a siege that recalls the takeover of al-Fashir in North Darfur last year.
“These horrors must not be repeated,” Britain’s Human Rights Ambassador Eleanor Sanders told the body.
Others, like South Africa’s ambassador Zaheer Laher, backed the move, calling the situation a “red alert as the Rapid Support Forces are drawing from the very same genocidal playbook they used in al-Fashir.”
The U.N. human rights chief warned on Friday that a “catastrophe” was unfolding around al-Obeid, and that his office had documented patterns of summary executions, abductions, torture and sexual violence in the surrounding region.
In the past, the RSF has denied such abuses in over three years of civil war — saying the accounts have been manufactured by its enemies and making counter-accusations against them.
The motion was adopted by consensus although China disassociated itself from the decision, saying it did not support investigations that target individual countries without their backing.
Others said the motion should have done more to name actors they say are fuelling the conflict by supplying weapons including drones, instead of merely alluding to “external support”.
“The council failed to fully seize the moment,” said African rights group DefendDefenders, referring to what it called sustained UAE support to the RSF.
Sudan’s army-aligned government has also accused the UAE of arming the group, which has been fighting the Sudanese army in the civil war.
The UAE has repeatedly denied such accusations, though U.N. experts and U.S. lawmakers have found evidence of UAE military support credible.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Matthias Williams, Aidan Lewis)
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