Russia abstained yesterday as the country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who traveled to Khartoum in early February, had promised to support Sudan’s call for UN sanctions to be lifted.
The United Nations Security Council voted yesterday to renew for another year the regime of sanctions imposed on Sudan since 2005 and the outbreak of conflict in Darfur, although Russia and China abstained.
With 13 votes in favor and two abstentions, the SA “decides to extend until March 12, 2024 the mandate of the council of experts originally named, by virtue of resolution 1591 of 2005,” which has been extended for 18 years, according to the new resolution 2676 .
Various expert groups are tasked by the Security Council with overseeing the implementation of arms embargoes and economic sanctions against various states in a state of crisis or at war.
Russia abstained yesterday as the country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who traveled to Khartoum in early February, had promised to support Sudan’s call for UN sanctions to be lifted. At the same time, he defended the action of the Russian mercenary company Wagner in Africa to deal with the “terrorist” threat.
Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky accused “the USA” of deciding “to force a vote on this text”, calling it “unacceptable that Security Council sanctions are used as punitive measures”.
Similarly, China’s representative Geng Shuang said his country abstained as it considers the sanctions “outdated,” saying they “should be lifted in light of the improvement of conditions on the ground” — in Darfur.
A series of sanctions and an arms embargo were imposed on Sudan in 2005 amid the conflict in Darfur state (west).
The economy of the large East African country, one of the poorest countries in the world, suffered unstoppable bleeding and withering due to the multi-year sanctions, especially the American ones, against Omar El Bashir.
The pause in the democratic transition after the fall of the Bashir regime brought hope: in 2020, Washington removed Sudan from the list of states that support terrorism, and international aid returned, with its value reaching two billion dollars annually .
But the October 25, 2021 coup by the head of the armed forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, interrupted the political transition and international aid stopped and is not expected to resume until after civilians return to power.
Source :Skai
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