Sudan

Attacks by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Force have killed hundreds of civilians, including infants, in White Nile state, Sudanese officials and rights groups said Tuesday. 

More than one in two people in war-torn Sudan have too little to eat, famine “is taking hold” and sexual violence is rife, the UN’s top aid official said on Monday, as the global body launched an appeal for $6 billion to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in the devastated country and beyond.

Sudan has said a final deal has been agreed with Russia to establish a naval base on the war-torn country's Red Sea coast, saying there were "no obstacles" to it. … The Red Sea provides a strategic route that is vital to global commerce as well as a defence and geopolitical hotspot.

Sudan’s army chief said Saturday that a transitional government would be formed soon, as the military makes major gains against rival paramilitaries in the capital and central parts of the war-torn country. Speaking in Port Sudan, the country’s de facto capital, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said the new administration – described as either a “caretaker government” or a “war government” – would be composed of “independent” experts.

The civilian death toll in Sudan has surged dramatically, with at least 275 people killed between 31 January and 5 February, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, reported on Friday. This figure represents a threefold increase from the previous week, when at least 89 civilians lost their lives amid the ongoing hostilities. The crisis is compounded by intensifying violence in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, where a humanitarian catastrophe looms, according to the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami.

The UN Secretary-General expressed deep alarm on Monday over reports of summary executions of civilians in the Sudanese city of Khartoum North, allegedly carried out by fighters and militias allied with the forces of the military Government. … The food crisis in Sudan is worsening, with reports confirming more than 70 hunger-related deaths – mostly among children – in Khartoum State, according to OCHA.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday called on the UN Security Council to act decisively to address the worsening atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region. Briefing ambassadors, Karim Khan highlighted the urgent need for justice and accountability as violence and humanitarian suffering escalate.

About 70 people have been killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the head of the World Health Organization has said, the latest in a series of attacks as the African nation’s civil war has escalated in recent days.

The disastrous conflict in Sudan is pushing the country deeper into chaos. Work to halt it has never been more urgent. To get talks going, mediators may need to present a notional picture of what the post-war dispensation could look like.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned on Friday that Sudanese civilians were in greater peril than ever as ethnically motivated attacks and hate speech by the warring parties becomes “increasingly common.”