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August 29, 2024 (Washington) – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin recognizes the perilous conditions facing the people of El Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, and urges the diplomatic community to take immediate action to stop the continued mass atrocities.
“The people of El Fasher, already suffering from bombing and shelling by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), now face an imminent threat from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are gathering strength for another brutal attack across Sudan,” he said.
Cardin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said people living in the famine-stricken Zam Zam camp were now also at serious risk of mass atrocities if the rapid rescue team launched the offensive.
“I urge the entire diplomatic community – including bilateral, regional, and multilateral partners – to unequivocally demand the immediate withdrawal of the Rapid Security Force, the Sudanese Armed Forces, and their allied forces. The international community must be prepared to deploy all diplomatic tools to stop this attack – including extending the UN arms embargo on Darfur and expanding it to the entire country – and to pressure all parties to cease their horrific attacks on the Sudanese people and provide cross-border and cross-line humanitarian access,” the Senator explained.
“Those responsible for these atrocities and their accomplices must face justice. I support the Sudanese people in their continued pursuit of peace,” he added.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have been trying to stop fighting between Sudanese troops and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Lack of progress in the Jeddah talks dashed hopes of resolving a conflict that has displaced more than a million people inside and outside Sudan, devastated the economy and sparked genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.
The Jeddah talks were first suspended in June and resumed in October. Another round of talks in Geneva was adjourned last week without a new agreement.
However, Sudanese sources who attended the talks said promises to quell rhetoric, arrest Bashir cronies and provide humanitarian aid had not been fulfilled.
Sources said representatives of both sides did not hold face-to-face talks as they remained divided over the Rapid Security Forces’ occupation of large parts of Khartoum.
The military asked the RSF to withdraw to specific bases and rejected a counter-proposal by the RSF to evacuate civilians and set up checkpoints around the city.
(English stone)
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