Senior UN official regrets apathy toward atrocities in Sudan

Alsharq Tribune-Ahmed Essam 

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher on Thursday regretted international apathy toward the atrocities in Sudan.

"El Fasher -- already the scene of catastrophic levels of human suffering -- has descended into an even darker hell, with credible reports of widespread executions after Rapid Support Forces fighters entered the city," he told the UN Security Council.

Women and girls are being raped, people mutilated and killed -- with utter impunity. On Wednesday, almost 500 patients and their companions in the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur, were reportedly killed, he said.

Tens of thousands of terrified, starving civilians have fled or are on the move. Those able to flee -- the vast majority, women, children, and the elderly -- face extortion, rape and violence on the perilous journey. Young men have been abducted or killed on the road and large numbers of people have been prevented from leaving the area, he said.

"What is unfolding in El Fasher recalls the horrors that Darfur was subjected to 20 years ago. But somehow today we are seeing a very different global reaction -- one of resignation. So this is also a crisis of apathy," he said.

He called on the Security Council and UN member states to take immediate and robust action to stop the atrocities against civilians and to stop arming this violence, and asked for full and unimpeded humanitarian access in El Fasher and everywhere in Sudan.