UN Relief Chief calls Darfur 'epicentre of human suffering'
UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Remarks at the Daily Press Briefing at UN Headquarters
Adré, Chad, 17 November 2025
Thanks so much Steph [Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General], and good afternoon, everyone. I've actually just come out of Darfur, so I've just reached Adré, where I'll be spending the night tonight, seeing our local teams here and judging how the response is going across the border. This is a crucial border crossing.
But I've had a week inside Darfur, which is now the epicentre of human suffering in the world. My aims going in were, firstly, to understand and confront the perils that civilians are facing every day in Darfur. Second, to break open genuine access - real access - for our humanitarian colleagues to the communities who are hit the hardest. And thirdly, to demand an international response, which is more vigorous and rooted in genuine humanity and courage, along the lines of the briefing I gave the Security Council a couple of weeks ago.
And so, in the course of the last week, I met leaders, front-line responders, and of course, most importantly, the people who are living through this crisis every day. And you can see on the various social media feeds clips of many of those discussions.
The itinerary was, I started in Port Sudan, then went through the Adré crossing, via Geneina; spent the night in Golo, courtesy of our friends at Save the Children; then on to Tawila for a couple of nights, where I was put up by our friends at the Norwegian Refugee Council; then back via a night last night in Nertiti; and then back through Geneina and through the Adré crossing. And I'll go on now to N'Djamena tomorrow.
In Port Sudan, I met, of course, General Burhan. I also had a very useful meeting, a joint meeting with the foreign ministers of Egypt and Sudan. And there, the real focus was on getting unlimited access, unhindered access, everywhere that we need it and security for our convoys and our personnel.
It's very clear to me - it has been since my first week in the job, when I visited Sudan and visited Darfur - that we need more UN boots on the ground. The UN is a ship that was not built to stay in the harbour, and this visit has been part of that big push to make sure we're mobilized closer to those we serve.
Then, of course, Darfur was kind of the core of the visit. It's an absolute horror show, as many of you have been reporting. El Fasher, based on the testimonies I heard from many survivors, is basically a crime scene right now.
I was here this week as part of a sustained effort across the UN leadership, actually. So Amy Pope of the IOM [International Organization for Migration] as you heard at the end of last week, Carl Skau of the WFP [World Food Programme] were also here, and this is now part of a five- to six- week sustained push across several senior UN leaders to get in and surge that engagement in response to what we're hearing from El Fasher and more widely.
Amazingly impressed as ever, by the grit of our UN and NGO staff in Tawila on the front line. This is one of the most challenging environments that we work in, and they're doing extraordinary work. I went on from Tawila to even closer to El Fasher to Korma, where many of those who've escaped are currently based, and again, heard so many stories of misery and horror from people there - but that real desire that people have for the world to hear their stories, and I'll share a couple of those stories in a moment.
You know, it's striking when you meet our teams across Sudan how many of them themselves are internally displaced people and who have lost loved ones. I just did an all-staff meeting online as I drove up the road through Geneina, and one of my colleagues - now based in Khartoum, but originally from El Fasher - said that having not seen his aunt for a year-and-a-half, he saw her in the background of one of my videos yesterday, and it was confirmation that she was alive. So our staff are also survivors of this conflict.
In Korma, as you may have seen, I also met with the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] representatives. It was a tough discussion. I set out unequivocally that we will be expecting protection for civilians; that we will be insisting, not asking, for accountability; and insisting, again, not asking, for safe passage, safe passage for civilians to get out and for our convoys and aid to get in. The deliberate attacks on civilians - and I heard so many stories of these - must stop, and we want those who commit these crimes to face justice.
Of course, we're not just dealing with Darfur. We've also got to keep our eyes on the Kordofans. It's important we investigate the atrocities that have happened in El Fasher, but also that we are working to prevent future atrocities.
The needs, of course, are massive. Nearly two in every three people in Sudan needs aid right now. Eleven months into the year, we're at 32 per cent funded of the US$4 billion that we need for 2025, and again, as I've described to you after previous visits, I'm seeing the impact, the huge impact, the brutal life-and-death choices we're making as a result of aid cuts. And just a reminder that all we're asking for to save 114 million lives is 1 per cent of what the world is currently spending on arms and defence.
Just to close, a few highlights of what I saw - some outcomes and some takeaways. One third of the people arriving in El Fasher are malnourished, 15 per cent of [displaced] children under the age of 5 [across North Darfur] are suffering the deadliest form of malnutrition. It's a crisis that hits children hardest. One in five people killed in El Fasher was a child, and I met so many kids who are carrying their younger siblings to safety, strangers picking up babies on the road when the parents of those children are killed.
I met one woman in one of the clinics that we're supporting who had seen her own husband killed in front of her and had escaped - and her neighbour - and had escaped with a malnourished child of her neighbour, then had to make that perilous walk to Tawila, going through so many checkpoints where people are being fleeced, they're having everything taken from them. En route while she carried this malnourished baby, she had her leg broken by men on one of those checkpoints, and I think you can probably fill in the rest of that story.
A horror show, absolute horror show - countless stories like that. It's a sexual violence epidemic, as you know. And our healthcare partners are reporting that they're getting up to 250 people arriving daily with gunshot and torture wounds.
I was very struck a couple of nights ago, wandering up to chat to a group of kids just outside where we were staying, and it was all smiles and it was all happy. And I noticed one of the kids was wearing an English football top, a Man City football top, and I just went to point at the logo on the top, and this kid recoiled away from me in terror. These kids have been through so, so much.
Some of the outcomes, briefly - we have, I think, a pretty strong agreement from the authorities in Port Sudan and the RSF on full access and safe passage for our convoys to go in and for civilians to get out. Now, let's see what happens next. Let's see if they live up to those commitments they've made to me. But we will call out those blockages, as I told the Security Council just two weeks ago. When we're blocked, we will say so.
We made progress on getting our teams into El Fasher on UN terms. We're not going to be instrumentalized. As I say, this is a potential crime scene, and we've got to make sure we've got the right people going in, and that the aid is genuinely neutral and impartial when it does go in.
We have a surge of UN staff to Darfur. When I left, I had a meeting with 28 UN staff now based or in Tawila at the moment. That's a huge increase on what we've had even three months ago.
And I've also been doing, throughout this trip, very close liaison, I've been in daily contact with [US Senior Advisor] Dr. [Massad] Boulos at the White House - and with the Quad more widely and other Member States - on the need for this massive diplomatic push.
I think there is potentially a moment of opportunity here, if the international community is ready to seize it, and we need the Security Council, we need Member States to be much, much clearer on protection of civilians, on humanitarian access, on limiting these flows of arms which are doing such damage to civilians, and on ensuring we get accountability and investigations.
I'll stop there, but just one final reflection, something I've learned on this trip. This has been physically the toughest mission I've done, this week, and I've seen really close up how tough these access challenges really are. I wanted to get up that road to show that it could be done and show that we needed to get our convoys moving up that road, but it's a brutal two- to three-day journey.
Along the way, another UN convoy that was following us, a UNICEF convoy, was caught up in a [strike] on a commercial vehicle, and our colleagues were shaken up [...]. On the way back, we were caught up in a huge forest fire, which was a pretty dicey moment. One of our vehicles had a crash. And of course, we're going through checkpoint after checkpoint after checkpoint manned by these different military groups. I say "manned" - in many cases, these are not men on the checkpoints, they're kids.
And you know, that constant reminder of the dangers that our teams face and the risks we run. But as I say, we're going to get that blue flag flying as close as possible to the people we serve, and this mission, that was our number one objective.
Thanks, Steph. Back to you.
Q: Hi, thank you for the briefing. In the name of the UN Correspondents Association, my name is Ibtisam Azem, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper. So my first question is about - or a few follow-ups to things you said - you talked about that we need more UN boots on the ground. Could you elaborate what do you mean by that, exactly? And then you said that you met General Burhan and representatives of RSF - do you mean Hemedti, General Hemedti? And how did these talks go? I mean, you have promises, but is there any guarantee from international parties who can put more pressure on this on them to get more aid? And the last one regarding the Security Council, do you believe that there should be an arms embargo on Sudan, on all parties? Thank you.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Thanks, Ibtisam; thanks, Steph. So, I've felt since going just under a year ago in my first week in the job that we do need this more visible presence for UN humanitarians inside Darfur. We've had all sorts of challenges getting people into Darfur and more widely across Sudan in the numbers that they are needed.
I want that presence, really, for three reasons. Firstly, because it's a form of protection. Civilians and survivors tell us that when they see us there, they feel safer. They feel less at risk from retaliation and from this conflict spreading towards Tawila, for example, which would be catastrophic. Also to make sure that we're negotiating the access we need for our convoys and working with our NGO colleagues who are such a key part of this effort - I mentioned NRC and Save [the Children], but there are many other key, key partners operating on the ground. And also, then to make sure that we're getting the delivery right. Because of the aid cuts, we're having to hyper-prioritize the work we do, and that means we need those people on the ground really making sure that aid gets where it's needed.
On the contacts with the RSF, I had a call with Hemedti a couple of weeks ago, as part of the preparations for this surge of aid that we want to see and this surge of engagement. I met on the ground just local representatives of the RSF. I think that they certainly heard from me this pressure for us to have complete unhindered access, safe passage, and for the atrocities to stop and for accountability. That's a conversation I've been having with the senior civilian official, as well, of the RSF throughout this visit and in advance of this visit.
But as you say, we do need that sustained international pressure. We're seeing it. [US] Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio has been very clear in recent days on this - we're seeing it from across the region as well - on all the parties to give us that humanitarian access and to bring this conflict to an end.
On the arms embargo, I'll hand that one back to Steph. I think he'll have a wiser answer than I do, but I would be straying outside my humanitarian lane, which, as Steph knows, I'm very diligent about not stepping outside of, ever. And so with gratitude to him, I'll let him tell you our view on that.
Q: Hello, Mr. Fletcher. This is Gabriel Elizondo from Al Jazeera English, thanks for the briefing. And we took note of all your social media content while you were in Sudan and still are there. It was quite helpful to get a sense of what you're seeing and hearing on the ground. Two quick questions. One is, you said you had, in your words, tough discussions with the RSF, but then you said you have reached some sort of agreement for full access and safe passage. Full access and safe passage mean different things to different people. Can you explain your understanding of what it means - what you think coming out of that meeting, full access means between you and the RSF. And second question is El Fasher, you described it as a crime scene. We don't know how many people are left even in El Fasher to get humanitarian aid. What is your thinking in terms of trying to get in there and when and how, and would it even be a humanitarian mission at this point? Thank you.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Thanks, Gabriel, and great questions. So I know what we mean by full access. And you know, those were the commitments I was seeking from the RSF, and actually from other parties on the ground, that we get unhindered access to people on the basis of need, and that this is never politicized, that we don't go in, of course, with any military accompaniments and so on, that we are going in under our own steam, aligned with the principles of neutrality and independence and impartiality.
Safe passage means that our UN humanitarians and the humanitarian community, more widely, the NGOs, too, are able to get up and down those roads - Tawila to Korma, Korma into El Fasher, and to work in El Fasher, without these threats of drones, of air strikes, of violence from parties on the ground. You often hear me say last year was the deadliest year to be a humanitarian worker, and Sudan was right up there, I think number two on that list. And it's not a great list to be near the top of.
In terms of when we get into El Fasher, I wouldn't want to put a deadline on it, because we want to test our conditions and make sure we're confident that they will be met. But my hope is that this is the work of days and maybe weeks and not of months. We need to get in absolutely urgently. And as you suggest, of course, from my perspective, we want to get the humanitarian convoys on the road, but other parts of the UN - [High Commissioner for Human Rights] Volker Türk has been very clear on this in his briefings - will also want to get people in to investigate what's happened and to bear witness to what has happened, and so that will be a key part of the conversation about who goes in when and in what order. Thank you.
Q: This is Zina from [Free Yemen Eye] news. So you are calling for more international pressure. What's the role of the UN to make it true and real, and what's the use of humanitarian aid if the conflict doesn't stop?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: We need that sustained international pressure. This has been my key message, really, to Member States and the Security Council. I think we are seeing more of that now, with the emergence of the Quad and the substantive work that they've been doing - of course, the work that Special Envoy [Ramtane] Lamamra is leading as well. We need just that sustained pressure on all the actors to demonstrate that this has gone on too long and that the methods of war - the level of impunity around this conflict - is utterly, utterly unacceptable.
Zina, sorry, you cut out. I missed the second half of your question.
Q: What's the use of the call on more passage of the humanitarian aid if the conflict doesn't stop itself? How you are acting as the United Nations to make true and stop this conflict?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Yeah, absolutely. And that's such a key question, we can't just be endlessly the sticking plaster that's responding to a conflict that shouldn't be so hard to stop. You know, I know how complex it is, that the politics around this are fiendishly, fiendishly difficult, the regional dynamics. But, as I said to the Security Council the other day, they've got to compare themselves to previous generations of Security Councils, previous generations of diplomats, future generations of diplomats. Would they have found it so difficult to end the conflict? And I know that so many people - including our colleague, Mr. Lamamra - are working incredibly hard on that.
But, you know, I feel this everywhere. This is a factor of our work globally right now, that we humanitarians, we're the ambulance that goes into these crises to try and help the survivors. But effectively now, in the absence of sustained international engagement, the world is also then saying to us, could you also be firemen, the fire people, and put out the fire as well? But it's doing that while saying, but by the way, we're not going to put much water in your fire engine, and the fire engine will get shot at as it heads out towards those survivors and civilians. So, this is getting really, really hard, and humanitarians are getting pulled into political situations and processes that aren't our core business. You know, we are meant to be the ambulance. We're not meant to be the ones putting the fire out.
Q: Hi, this is Dulcie Leimbach from Pass Blue. I wondered if you saw in your travels the Emergency Response Rooms? Are they still operating in Darfur? Thanks.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Great people, great colleagues. And I was there, I went to see them in Korma, and just incredibly courageous colleagues doing vital, vital work. You know, it's a reminder that because it's been so difficult often for the international community to really engage on the ground as close as we should be to those we serve, the real front line of this effort is those national, community-based NGOs. And one of my objectives as ERC [Emergency Relief Coordinator] is to ensure that we are getting half of our funding, through our pooled funds, to national NGOs, local NGOs, because this is such a tough time for the community as a whole, but we have to make sure that those people on the front line are getting the financial support that they need.
Q: Thank you, Tom. Just two questions on statistics. You said one in five - I believe you said one in five people killed is a child. How did you arrive at that figure? I mean, it's a messy conflict. How do we know for sure? And secondly, over the past few weeks, have we seen the number of deaths and wounded rise significantly? Do we have a number to put on that? Thank you.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: It's a fair question. I mean, I think no one can really say with much authority exactly how many people have been killed and exactly how many have been displaced. You know, it's clear for me, you've got hundreds of thousands in Tawila, and we know that in the last two weeks, tens of thousands more have been arriving. But it's very, very hard to put a number on that. And to be clear, as I think Ibtisam touched on earlier on, many people clearly aren't getting out of El Fasher. And one of the things we want to do when we go in is to find out why that is, and to see what the conditions are in which they're being held there.
On the one in five stat, this I think we got - we'd be able to check this for you, I don't know off the top my head - I think this was a [Save the Children] stat that I got from my Security Council briefing a couple of weeks ago. On the numbers killed, I couldn't give you a credible answer, I would just be guessing. But I do encourage you to have a look at some of the work done by the Yale [Humanitarian Research] Lab with the satellite footage and so on, which is, at the moment, alongside the testimonies of the survivors, our best guide. All I can say is that everyone I spoke to in Tawila had lost relatives, close relatives - so the numbers are clearly huge.
Q: Hi, Mr. Fletcher, this Xu Dezhi with China Central Television. You just mentioned that there is a surge of UN staff to 28. Are those international staff? You just said that the meeting between you and RSF representatives is very tough, but you yet have increased the UN staff number there. Does that mean you are expecting more humanitarian operation access in Darfur? Thank you.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: So the 28 staff that I met yesterday - the day before - before leaving Tawila are a mixture of national and international. We've increased both international and national. And by the way, from my perspective, leading this organization, I don't see the difference. These are all our front-line colleagues, and they are doing extraordinary, extraordinary work. Many of them, as I say, are from areas, are themselves displaced by this conflict. And I think the surge of staff into Darfur is a recognition of the scale of the need, but also our determination that we will get access to areas that we haven't previously had access to, haven't had permission to get access to. And it's my job and the job of our outstanding Humanitarian Coordinator, Denise Brown, and the team to be working flat out on those access issues. It's one of the most complex places to get access to those we need to reach, but we're determined to do it.
Q: Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. About two weeks ago at the Security Council, you said Sudan represents a failure of protection with aid blocked and civilians dying. Isn't it time to acknowledge that humanitarian appeals are no longer enough? Should the international community move toward responsibility to protect? And if not now, when?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: I think that's a very fair question, Stefano.I think we're clearly seeing that the humanitarian appeals - you know, 32 per cent funded - are clearly not going to be enough to even begin to meet these massive, massive needs. I'm sure there's a more official answer, but I personally have always been a big fan of responsibility to protect. But ultimately, this is a challenge for the international community and for the Member States. I don't have the means to go in there and protect civilians from what is happening to them. It's the Security Council and the international community that's going to have to do its work on that.
Q: I understand, just a quick follow up. I understand, of course, you don't, and also the Secretary-General doesn't, but you have a voice, and at this point, when you ask for help, humanitarian help, we need access, all this - this, I think, is a distraction, because at this point the people don't need - I mean, yes, they're starving, but before starvation, they need blue helmets on the field to protect them. Everything else is something that comes after, because they are dying. You can't feed a person that is dead.
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: I completely understand the question, Stefano, and I take your point, but I'm not going to somehow stop humanitarian operations and let more people die while I wait for Member States, international community, to think about blue helmets or other ways of stopping this conflict. I have to deal with the reality on the ground as we find it, and that means we'll save as many lives as we can in the conditions in which we're allowed to operate. Now, I desperately hope that those conditions get better and that there is that sustained international engagement to end this conflict, open up humanitarian space, but I can't and the people that we're here to serve can't wait for that.
Q: It's a follow-up question. You mentioned flow of arms, and we believe that there are major forces, foreign forces, who are feeding these arms. Did you, as representative of the UN, suggest any sanctions on both parties to stop all the major forces who are feeding them arms?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: Look, I'm clear from my first visit, but also particularly from this visit, the last thing Sudan needs right now is more guns and bullets. It needs aid and protection for the survivors. So I do think that we should have full accountability. There should be accountability for the people firing the weapons. There should be accountability for the people giving the orders. And those providing the weapons need to take a long look at themselves in the mirror - a long, long look at themselves in the mirror - and start to act responsibly.
Q: Did you suggest any sanctions - you, as a representative of the UN?
Under-Secretary-General Fletcher: No, that's outside my pure humanitarian furrow that I'm very keen to stay in.
Posted on 17 November 2025
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