Emergency Relief Chief warns Security Council attacks in El Fasher "recall the horrors" that Darfur endured 20 years ago
UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator's briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Sudan
New York, 30 October
Mr. President,
As you have heard, El Fasher - already the scene of catastrophic levels of human suffering - has descended into an even darker hell, with credible reports of widespread executions after Rapid Support Forces fighters entered the city.
Can anyone here say that we did not know this was coming?
We cannot hear the screams, but, as we sit here today the horror is continuing. Women and girls are being raped, people mutilated and killed - with utter impunity. And let us be clear: a full 16 months after the adoption of resolution 2736, the victims will not know of the noble commitments on that page, nor hear our statements today about how much we care.
Yesterday, almost 500 patients and their companions in the Saudi Maternity Hospital were reportedly killed. The latest of countless attacks on health care and yet another example of the depravity with which this war has been fought.
Tens of thousands of terrified, starving civilians have fled or are on the move, with most moving on foot towards Tawila, to the south-west. And Tawila is already hosting hundreds of thousands of people displaced by previous attacks.
Those able to flee - the vast majority, women, children, and the elderly - face extortion, rape and violence on the perilous journey. Young men have been abducted or killed on the road and large numbers of people prevented from leaving the area.
Now, as the Council knows, we have been pressing, since July, for a humanitarian pause in El Fasher, to enable the safe movement of our life-saving convoys of food and medicines to those who need them. We have been blocked by the RSF, as the siege and attacks against civilians have intensified.
I pay tribute to the humanitarian organizations and host communities in Tawila who are supporting the exhausted, traumatized, malnourished and injured, while preparing for more to arrive.
Across Sudan, and despite the massive threats, cuts, constraints to our work - to which I will turn later - the humanitarian community has reached 13.5 million people between January and August, across the country. We have UN and international NGO staff on the ground in Darfur, working alongside local partners, providing emergency healthcare support, treating malnourished children, distributing food and battling cholera and other diseases.
This week, I released US$20 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to scale up support in Tawila and across Darfur and the Kordofans. This complements allocations from our Sudan Humanitarian Fund focusing on NGO partners and, most importantly, the local responders who remain at the forefront of our efforts.
Mr. President,
The killing has not been limited to Darfur. We have seen deadly drone strikes on markets in Kabkabiya and Saraf Omra - areas understood to be under RSF control.
Fierce fighting in North Kordofan State is driving new waves of displacement and endangering the humanitarian response, including around the state capital, El Obeid. On Tuesday, our colleagues at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies shared the appalling news that five Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers were killed while supporting food distributions in Bara in North Kordofan the previous day, and three remain missing.
A drone strike in Mazroub, also in North Kordofan, on 17 October, killed a large number of civilians, including a prominent tribal leader and other members of his group.
In South Kordofan, Kadugli and Dilling have remained largely cut off from support, despite the repeated assurances I have been given on humanitarian flights and humanitarian hubs. Yesterday, however, we received good news that a joint UN convoy reached both towns with food, health, nutrition and hygiene supplies, as well as basic household items. This follows a key UNICEF convoy into the area in August, so we now need to build on this by establishing regular access.
Mr. President,
The Sudan crisis is, at its core, a failure of protection and our responsibility to uphold international law. Sexual violence against women and girls is systematic. Deadly attacks against humanitarian workers are normalised. Atrocities are committed with unashamed expectation of impunity, driven by complete disregard of the most fundamental obligations of international humanitarian law.
Sudan's children face particularly risks. Countless children are forcibly recruited to kill each other. Nearly one in five civilians killed in El Fasher this month were children. Around 90 per cent of children across Sudan lack access to formal education. The war has reversed almost 40 years of progress on child immunization, putting millions of children at tremendous risk of preventable diseases. The world has failed an entire generation.
This is also a crisis of hunger, with famine confirmed and severe food insecurity across all areas in which fighting has been most intense and access most challenging. Three quarters of women-headed households are food insecure. More than 24 million people - over 40 per cent - lack enough food to eat. Our teams in Tawila are seeing traumatized people arriving, showing shocking signs of malnutrition.
Mr. President,
Meanwhile, the regional contagion continues to grow, with more than 4 million people having sought safety and humanitarian help in neighbouring countries. In Chad and the Central African Republic, humanitarian organizations are preparing for new large-scale movements into already overwhelmed camps and host communities.
Mr. President,
I applaud the work of the Quad and of US Special Envoy Boulos to end this conflict. We urge the Council to build on that effort with tangible results. Making peace will take patient, sustained effort.
I also implore this Council, and Member States, for support in three areas:
First, immediate and robust action to stop the atrocities against civilians. Stop arming this violence, insist that stopping this conflict is more important than any narrow political or commercial interests. Those who want to leave El Fasher must be able to do so safely. Those who remain must be protected. There must be accountability for those carrying out the killing and the sexual violence, for those giving the orders. And those providing the weapons should consider their responsibilities.
Just an hour ago, I spoke to a senior representative of the Tasis coalition, who informed me that the RSF has launched an investigation into ongoing violations and that arrests have been made. He also assured me of their commitment to protection of civilians. It remains difficult for now to identity this commitment amidst the appalling news that continues to come out of North Darfur.
Our second ask is, of course, full and unimpeded humanitarian access, in El Fasher, across Darfur, Khartoum, Kordofan - everywhere in Sudan. We are doing all we can to scale up and deliver around El Fasher, but we need security guarantees to do that effectively.
On access, I have to admit to you that, after almost a year in this job - including visiting Sudan in my first week - I have found the limits of my ability, and the UN's authority, to get this done, to get this access that we need: humanitarians simply asking that we be allowed to do our jobs and save lives is not working.
So, you must demand that we are able to operate everywhere, including by deploying national and international staff into areas of greatest need. We ask you to use your muscle to create genuine pressure to ensure this, and then hold us to account for delivering. We must and we will better arm you with the facts on where we are being blocked and by whom.
In this context, I am furious that the World Food Programme's Country Director and Emergency Coordinator have been expelled by the Sudanese authorities, without explanation.
The third ask: funding. As we enter the final quarter of the year, 74 per cent of our 2025 response plan is unfunded. Support for the Regional Refugee Response Plan is even lower. The impact is, I'm afraid, increasingly stark: Food rations are being reduced by half. Community kitchens closing without warning. Pregnant women delivering babies without medical help. Survivors of sexual violence left without dignity.
Mr. President,
I urge colleagues, if you haven't already, to study the latest satellite imagery of El Fasher. Blood on the sand.
Mr. President, I urge colleagues to study the world's continued failure to stop this. Blood on the hands.
What is unfolding in El Fasher recalls the horrors that Darfur was subjected to 20 years ago. But somehow today we are seeing a very different global reaction - one of resignation. So this is also a crisis of apathy.
My simple question to the Council - and to all of us working on this broken effort - is this: what is it about this crisis that makes it so hard? Would previous generations of leaders and diplomats have been so impotent? If not, what are we not doing that we could be doing? Our successors will talk of our failure and the actions we should have taken. Can we not take those actions now?
Can we act with vigour, courage, honesty, collective purpose? Is this really too hard for us? If not, where is our diplomacy? Where are our values? Where is our Charter? And where is our conscience?
We once pledged to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and international law can be maintained.
Please, can we now place those pledges on the road to El Fasher - as an apology, as a rebuke, as a challenge, and as a promise.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Posted on 30 October 2025
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