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US seeks Sudan-wide embargo
The United States urged the UN Security Council to expand an arms embargo from Darfur to cover all of Sudan as drone attacks escalate in the war’s fourth year, with Massad Boulos warning that the UN Security Council "must act to stop external financial and military support" entering Sudan.
“must act to stop external financial and military support”
Boulos told the council the proposal would expand the embargo geographically and materially, including drones and related technologies, and would increase the number of experts monitoring the sanctions regime.
The BBC said the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and forced 14 million more to flee their homes, while the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) accused each other of using drones.
At the same meeting, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned that fighting had in recent weeks been "characterised by the heavy use of drones," and Rosemary DiCarlo told the council that civilians were facing "the unrelenting consequences of one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time."
Russia, Sudan resist
Russia opposed the expansion, with the BBC saying Russia and China opposed a wider arms embargo and that they said it would affect Sudan's army's effectiveness.
Sudan’s UN envoy Al-Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed urged a "technical extension" of the existing embargo while warning against changes that would hamper the army, and the proposal faced resistance from Sudan itself and scepticism from Russia.
The BBC reported that Sudan's military chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan told a police graduation event in Khartoum that "The continuing talk about the possibility of imposing sanctions on the country will neither affect us nor weaken our resolve."
In the same UN setting, the UN under secretary-general Rosemary DiCarlo warned that "Drones launched by both sides have repeatedly struck markets, schools, fuel stations and water infrastructure," and she said the UN had documented that 1,100 civilians had died in drone strikes between January and June this year.
Monitoring, humanitarian stakes
Boulos said the US plan included a proposal to increase the number of experts monitoring the embargo, and he asked the council to take steps to curtail "external actors" fuelling the conflict, adding that this "risks drawing more regional actors and neighbours deeper into Sudan's conflict."
“risks drawing more regional actors and neighbours deeper into Sudan's conflict”
The BBC reported that an arms embargo covering the Darfur region has been in place for more than two decades and will expire next month if not amended or renewed, while the UN Security Council heard appeals about the embargo.
DiCarlo told the council that the true death toll since the war began was uncertain but was "likely to be in the hundreds of thousands," and she said the continued use of "sophisticated weaponry" pointed to ongoing external support to both sides.
The BBC also said the army controls much of Sudan's central and eastern regions while the RSF is headquartered in the western region of Darfur and controls areas in the south, and it described a reported drone strike on RSF positions in Nyala in Darfur hours after a large cargo flight landed there.