The head of the United Nations mission in Sudan, the German diplomat Volker Pertes, assessed yesterday Tuesday that the violence in the vast region of Darfur, in the western part of the country, may constitute “crimes against humanity”.

In Sudan, the war that broke out on April 15 is raging between the armed forces under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader after the 2021 coup, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries, under General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. .

The conflict is centered in the capital Khartoum and in Darfur, where local militias, tribal fighters and armed civilians are now involved in the fighting.

The war has killed at least 1,800 people, according to the latest estimate by the non-governmental organization ACLED, and uprooted more than 2 million civilians, according to the UN.

“As the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate, I am particularly concerned about the situation in El Jenaina (West Darfur), where the violence is taking on national dimensions,” the UN special envoy said in a press release released by his services.

“Wide-scale attacks against civilians, because of their ethnic and racial origins, by Arab militias and by gunmen in IDF uniforms are very worrying and, if verified, may amount to crimes against humanity,” he added.

Last week, the Sudanese government declared Mr. Pertes persona non grata, blaming him for the outbreak of the armed conflict and accusing him of choosing sides. However, Stéphane Dujarric, the representative of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that he remains in his position, that his status is “unchanged”.

As none of the ceasefire agreements have been implemented, NGOs are talking about a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Khartoum and Darfur.

“What is happening in El Jenaina and Qutoum (to the east) needs to be investigated internationally,” Darfur Governor Mini Minawi, a former rebel leader who has sided with the regular army, said on Twitter on Saturday.

In the 2000s, General Daglo, head of the Janjaweed militias, took the lead in implementing the scorched earth policy in Darfur under the orders of the then dictator Omar al-Bashir.

The war in Darfur has killed some 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million civilians, according to the UN. In 2013, the DTY, paramilitary auxiliary forces of the army, were born from the Janjaweed.

Generals Burhan and Daglo were united when they staged the 2021 coup, ousting citizens from the government they had shared power with after Bashir’s fall in 2019. But then differences emerged between them and, in the absence of agreement on the terms of membership of the DTY in the regular army, they were dragged into war.

The UN Secretary-General is outraged by the “increasingly ethnic dimension of violence” in Darfur

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is alarmed by reports of widespread violence in Darfur, Sudan, and calls on warring parties to cease hostilities and commit to a lasting ceasefire, a press release issued by the spokesman said. of yesterday Tuesday.

“He is very concerned about the increasingly national dimension of violence” and “about the information about sexual violence,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in the text he released.