Conflict-torn Sudan is on the brink of a “full-scale civil war” that could destabilize the entire region, the United Nations warned on Sunday, after an airstrike on a residential area killed around 20 civilians.
The Health Ministry said ’22 civilians were killed and a large number of injured’ from the strike on Khartoum’s sister city, Omdurman, in Dar al-Salam district, which means ‘House of Peace’. ” in Arabic.
After nearly three months of war between rival generals in Sudan, the airstrike is the latest incident to spark outrage.
Around 3,000 people have been killed in the conflict, survivors have reported a wave of sexual violence and witnesses have spoken of ethnically targeted killings. There has been widespread looting and the UN has warned of possible crimes against humanity in the Darfur region.
A video posted by the Ministry of Health on Facebook showed apparently lifeless bodies after the airstrike, including several women. The narrator says that the inhabitants “counted 22 dead”.
Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting the regular army, claimed the strike left 31 people dead.
Since the start of the war, paramilitaries have established bases in residential areas and have been accused of forcing civilians from their homes.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday condemned the airstrike in Omdurman, which he said “would have killed at least 22 people” and injured dozens, his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in a statement. communicated.
Guterres “remains deeply concerned that the ongoing war between the armed forces has pushed Sudan to the brink of full-scale civil war, potentially destabilizing the entire region,” Haq said.
He added: “There is a complete disregard for humanitarian law and human rights which is dangerous and disturbing.”
Nearly three million people have been uprooted by the fighting in Sudan, of whom nearly 700,000 have fled to neighboring countries according to the International Organization for Migration.
The UN and African blocs have warned of an “ethnic dimension” to the conflict in the western Darfur region, where the US, Norway and Britain have blamed the RSF and allied militias for most widespread violations.
Haq expressed his support for the efforts made by the African Union and the East African bloc IGAD to end the Sudanese crisis.
On Monday, the leaders of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan – the IGAD members in charge of the Sudan file – are due to meet in Addis Ababa.
Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have been invited but neither side has confirmed their attendance.
Many ceasefires during the war were announced and ignored.
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