Nov. 13 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged the international community to halt arms flows to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces in the wake of mass killings and atrocities after the group overran El Fasher in the country’s Darfur region.
Speaking at Hamilton Airport in Ontario on Wednesday, following a meeting of the G7, Rubio said atrocities committed against civilians by the paramilitary group, including murder and rape and sexual violence, were systematic and had to be stopped.
“They’re committing acts of sexual violence and atrocities, just horrifying atrocities, against women, children, innocent civilians of the most horrific kind. And it needs to end immediately. And we’re going to do everything we can to bring it to an end, and we’ve encouraged partner nations to join us in this fight,” Rubio said.
He added that he had heard from humanitarian groups that some of the levels of malnutrition and suffering among those who had been able to flee were unprecedented, “things they’ve never recorded before.”
“I think even more troubling is that they didn’t have the number of refugees they expected to receive because they assume many of them are either dead or so sick and malnourished they can’t move anymore,” Rubio said.
Rubio rejected claims by the breakaway faction of the country’s military government that had been engaged in a two-year-long power struggle with the Sudan Armed Forces, that it did not permit violence against civilians.
He accused the RSF of repeatedly failing to deliver on its promises.
“The RSF few days ago agreed to a humanitarian cease-fire, but they don’t intend to comply with it. And when you raise the issue of these atrocities, they always hide behind the argument that this is rogue elements.
“Well, it’s not rogue elements. They’re doing it systematically, and it’s something that we have taken very seriously and are doing everything we can to bring the relevant countries to the table to stop it,” he said, referring to the U.S-led “Quad” initiative bringing together the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in an effort to resolve the conflict.
Rubio said somebody was giving the RSF money and weapons via a third country and that he knew who and while he declined to identify them, he pointedly suggested that they were part of the Quad.
The UAE has sided with the RSF in the conflict and has been supplying weapons covertly to the group, according to U.N. experts. The UAE denies the allegations but it was sufficient to prompt the Biden administration to impose sanctions in January on seven UAE companies funneling funds to RSF chief Hemedti.
“We’re not going to let the Quad process that we’ve set up be a shield that people hide behind and say, “Well, we’re involved with the Quad. We’re trying to solve it,” said Rubio.
Since fall of El Fasher, the last remaining stronghold of the SAF in the west of the country, to the RSF in late October after a 500-day siege, numerous accounts have emerged of mass killings, bombing of civilians, sexual violence against women and attacks on hospitals.
On Tuesday, the United Nations said women fleeing the city were subjected to rape, starvation and deadly bombing, and accused the RSF of using rape as a “weapon of war.”
