UK, Germany and Jordan call for immediate ceasefire in Sudan war

Families from el-Fasher at a displacement camp (NRC via AP)

The United Kingdom, Germany and Jordan have jointly called for an immediate ceasefire in the war in Sudan after a paramilitary force seized the last major city in the East African nation’s Darfur region.

United Nations officials have warned that fighters with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have rampaged through the Darfur city of el-Fasher, reportedly killing more than 450 people in a hospital and carrying out ethnically-targeted killings of civilians and sexual assaults.

While the RSF has denied killing people at the hospital, those who have escaped el-Fasher, satellite images and videos circulating on social media provide glimpses of what appears to be mass slaughter taking place in the city.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper speaking at The International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

At the Manama Dialogue security summit in Bahrain, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Just as a combination of leadership and international co-operation has made progress in Gaza, it is currently badly failing to deal with the humanitarian crisis and the devastating conflict in Sudan, because the reports from Darfur in recent days have truly horrifying atrocities.

“Mass executions, starvation and the devastating use of rape as a weapon of war, with women and children bearing the brunt of the largest humanitarian crisis in the 21st century. For too long, this terrible conflict has been neglected, while suffering has simply increased.”

She added that “no amount of aid can resolve a crisis of this magnitude until the guns fall silent”.

Her German counterpart Johann Wadephul echoed Ms Cooper’s concern, directly calling out the RSF for its violence in el-Fasher.

“Sudan is is absolutely an apocalyptic situation,” Mr Wadephul said.

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi said Sudan has not received “the attention it deserves. A humanitarian crisis of inhumane proportions has taken place there”.

“We’ve got to stop that,” he added.