UNFPA

Families displaced from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, seek refuge in Tawila.

Mounting evidence of torture and mass killings of civilians trying to flee the Sudanese North Darfur regional capital El Fasher is stirring outrage and condemnation of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary force responsible for the current wave of massacres as they battle the Sudanese Armed Forces for control. In a statement following an emergency session demanding "all parties to the conflict protect civilians and abide by their obligations under international law," the UN Security Council singled out for condemnation "the assault by the RSF for "its devastating impact on the civilian population."

A four-nation diplomatic iniative spearheaded by the United States has stalemented after failed talks last week. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) — a member of the ‘Quad’ that also includes Egypt and Saudi Arabia — is said to have blocked agreement on a proposed three-month pause in hostilities. The UAE has come under fire for mounting evidence of its large-scale support for the RSF, despite repeated denials. Quoting U.S. intelligence sources, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that the UAE has shipped "increasing supplies of weapons" into Sudan to shore up the RSF," .

Responding to eye-witness accounts that patients in the city’s Saudi Hospital were "vollectively eliminated" along with civilians at the university and the Interior Ministry, World Health Organization head Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: "All attacks on health care MUST STOP immediately and unconditionally."

"International response to the war has been a study in diplomatic failure, defined by a proliferation of competing initiatives that actively undermine each other," writes Hafed Al-Ghwell from the Stimson Center in Washington DC. "If either President Trump or Joe Biden had been willing to name and shame the Emirates, I suspect it would have backed off -- or at least required the Rapid Support Forces to stop slaughtering and civilians," Nicholas Kristof in the latest of a series of his Sudan columns in the New York Times.