A high-level independent rights probe into the ongoing brutal war in Sudan has condemned the many grave crimes committed by all combatants.

The probe cited evidence indicating that civilians have been “deliberately targeted, displaced and starved”.

Chair of the Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan, Mohamed Othman, presented a mandated report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.

“The Sudanese people have endured atrocities for decades while perpetrators enjoy impunity. That circle must end,” Mr Othman said.

He insisted that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia had carried out criminal atrocities.

Among the testimonies gathered for the report, survivors from RSF detention sites described the locations as “slaughterhouses”.

“In one notorious RSF facility, dozens of detainees died between June and October this year after being tortured, denied food and medical care,” the independent rights expert said.

Equally, in SAF-run detention facilities, “civilians were also subjected to torture, including electric shock, sexualised abuse, and they were held in cells so overcrowded that some prisoners had to sleep standing,” he added.

In addition, girls as young as 12 were forced into marriages. Sometimes under the threat of death to their families”, the fact-finding mission chair decried.

“Men and boys were also subjected to sexualised torture and such acts are rooted in racism, prejudice, and impunity, and they devastate entire communities,” he stated.

Report co-author Mona Rishmawi highlighted the lack of diplomatic solutions to the conflict, which began in April 2023, and the massive impact of the war on civilians.

Mr Rishmawi insisted that “everybody knows you cannot rape, you cannot loot, you cannot destroy property.

He said, “You cannot starve people. But if there is no accountability, of course, they will continue doing it.”

Mr Rishmawi added that the evidence of what had been happening in Sudan basically looked more or less the same kind of violations as “genocide”.

“You kill, you provide no food, no water, you don’t allow food production, access to food, markets, and humanitarian aid,” he stated. “What you do want is to kill the population. The effect of this is really a crime against humanity.”

Expert member of the Fact-Finding Mission, Joy Ezeilo, said witnesses describe children dying of hunger and dehydration in the streets, including people eating animal food.

The investigative body created by the Human Rights Council in October 2023 highlighted the devastating humanitarian emergency that had resulted from the war.

Addressing the council earlier, Mr Othman insisted that the war was destroying not only lives but also the means of survival.

He said hospitals, markets, water and electricity systems, and even humanitarian convoys were systematically attacked.

“Markets, the backbone of food access, have been repeatedly bombed,” he said, adding that SAF and RSF airstrikes on markets have killed and injured hundreds. 

(NAN)