BRUSSELS – The European Parliament on Thursday urged the European Union to consider listing Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as a terrorist organization and called on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to halt all financial, military and other forms of support for the group, as lawmakers adopted a resolution on the escalating humanitarian and human rights crisis in Sudan.
The resolution strongly condemned what it described as war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict, particularly the RSF’s ongoing siege of El Obeid, and called on the international community to prevent what it warned could become a repeat of the Al Fasher massacre by pressing the RSF to lift the siege.
The European Parliament urged all parties to the conflict to immediately cease hostilities, comply with international humanitarian law and end attacks against civilians, including conflict-related sexual violence and the use of starvation as a method of warfare.
It also called on the European Union to increase humanitarian assistance for Sudan, including support for survivors of sexual violence, people facing hunger, internally displaced persons and refugees. The resolution called for direct funding for Emergency Response Rooms and other frontline local organizations, while stressing the need to establish humanitarian corridors to facilitate civilian evacuations and the delivery of aid to El Obeid through both cross-line and cross-border access.
Lawmakers urged the European Union to join the African Union and the United Nations in efforts to secure a ceasefire and support a civilian-led political process. They also called for targeted sanctions against individuals and entities responsible for war crimes in Sudan.
The resolution condemned all forms of external interference that fuel the conflict and urged all states, including the United Arab Emirates, to cease financing, supplying arms or providing any other form of support to the RSF.
It further called on the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the Council of the European Union to impose sanctions on individuals, entities and external facilitators, including private security companies such as Global Security Services Group, for violating the United Nations arms embargo on Darfur, while urging the U.N. Security Council to expand the embargo to cover all of Sudan.
The European Parliament also called for independent investigations into alleged war crimes and urged the European Union to provide political and financial support for accountability efforts, press for extending the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to all of Sudan, continue supporting the mandate of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, and consider including the RSF on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations.
The resolution comes as the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF enters its third year, creating what the United Nations has described as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. More than 33 million people, including 16 million children, require humanitarian assistance, while millions more face displacement and acute food insecurity.
The Parliament also cited findings by the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission that the RSF’s capture of Al Fasher bore the hallmarks of genocide. It warned of the risk of further atrocities in El Obeid, where around 500,000 civilians remain at risk, while highlighting continued reports of conflict-related sexual violence and alleged external support to the RSF through foreign military contractors and transfers of military equipment in violation of the U.N. arms embargo on Darfur.
