Sudan’s Darfur region faces a growing risk of genocide as the world’s attention turns to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, a UN expert has warned.
“We have circumstances in which a genocide could occur or has occurred,” said the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide. Alice Wairimu Nderitutold the BBC program Newsday.
She said many civilians were being targeted based on their ethnicity in Sudan’s besieged city of El Fasher, where heavy fighting has intensified in recent days.
A medical charity in the city has reported more than 700 deaths in 10 days.
El Fasher is the last major urban center in the Darfur region still in the hands of the Sudanese army.
The army has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year, in a civil war that has killed thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.
The situation is developing into a “Rwanda-like” genocide of 1994, Ms Nderitu said, citing a UN analysis of growing risk factors.
“The increased hostilities in El Fasher have now opened a truly alarming chapter in this conflict,” she added.
“I call for attention to this specific conflict. I have tried to make my voice heard, but my voice is drowned out by other wars – in Ukraine and Gaza.”
Similar fears of a possible genocide in Darfur were recently expressed by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
A report by the campaign group said ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity have been committed by the paramilitary forces and their Arab allies against ethnic Massalit and non-Arab communities in the region.
It called for sanctions against those responsible for the atrocities, including RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti.
The current violence stems from a long history of tensions over resources between non-Arab farming communities, including the Massalit, and Arab pastoralist communities.
The BBC has heard from residents about the climate of fear and death as the conflict rages with no end in sight.
The internet has been cut, making access to the city difficult as soldiers from the RSF group continue to besiege the city.
An estimated 15,000 people were killed in the town of El Geneina in West Darfur last year, according to the UN.
Last June, West Darfur Governor Khamis Abakar was assassinated hours after accusing the RSF of genocide. He is the highest-ranking official known to have been killed since the conflict began in April.
The RSF says it is not involved in what it describes as a “tribal conflict” in Darfur.
The paramilitary group emerged from the Janjaweed militia, which was accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing against non-Arab communities in Darfur in 2003, after rebels took up arms and accused the government of ignoring the region.
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