UNITED NATIONS, Jan 20 (APP): Pakistan has called for renewing diplomatic efforts to end the widening war between Sudan’s rival military factions, unhindered humanitarian access, and a Sudanese-led-and-owned political process to restore peace in the country.
“There is no military solution to the conflict,” Ambassador Usman Jadoon, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council, which met on Monday to discuss the horrendous situation in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Ambassador Jadoon said Pakistan continues to advocate dialogue and diplomacy, while reiterating its commitment to uphold Sudan’s sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity.
Sudan has been engulfed in conflict since April 2023, when fighting erupted between former allies — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces militia (RSF).
What began as a power struggle metastasized into deadly conflicts across the country, most devastating in the Darfur region, which also saw longstanding ethnic tensions that prompted allegations of genocide in the early 2000s to be reignited.
Opening the debate, the Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Nazhat Shameem Khan, told the 15-member Council that the gruesome crisis in Sudan has “darkened even further” in the last six months, citing a pattern of large-scale crimes against humanity that is being repeated “in town after town” across the country’s Darfur region.
“Darfuris, as we speak, are being subjected to collective torture […] including rape, arbitrary detention, executions and mass graves, all perpetrated on a mass scale,” she said . “The picture that is emerging is appalling.”
Describing her Office’s ongoing collection of evidence and intensifying investigations into alleged crimes committed in West Darfur and in the city of El Fasher — which was seized by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters in October 2025 — she cited video, audio and satellite data clearly indicating that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed.
In some footage, she said, RSF fighters are seen celebrating executions of non-Arabs and desecrating corpses. Her Office is also analyzing evidence of mass crimes committed in 2023 in the West Darfur town of El Geneina, which are now being mirrored in El Fasher. “This criminality is being repeated in town after town in Darfur,” she said, warning that it will continue until the conflict, and the sense of impunity that fuels it, come to an end.
Among several landmark strides made by the Court in its Darfur case, Ms. Nazhat Khan noted the first conviction resulting from a referral by the Security Council and its first conviction on grounds of gender-based persecution. In late 2025, the Court unanimously indicted Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman — also known as Ali Kushayb, a senior commander of the notorious Janjaweed militia — for crimes against humanity and subsequently sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
Noting that she would have preferred to brief the Council in person but had been denied a visa by the host country, she urged States not to frustrate the Court’s work and to support its investigations. (The United States has sanctioned officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to its investigations and actions targeting Israel, which the U.S. deems illegitimate.)
In his remarks, Ambassador Jadoon, the Pakistani envoy, emphasized that the crimes committed in West Darfur, El Geneina and El Fasher must not go unpunished.
The Pakistani envoy commended Sudan’s cooperation with the Court, saying, “Cooperation between the ICC and the Sudanese Government must engender a holistic approach to accountability that respects complementarity and national sovereignty.
“Strengthening Sudan’s national justice institutions should remain essential priority for sustainable, credible, and locally-anchored accountability.”
He added, “The brotherly people of Sudan deserve peace, justice and dignity.”
Moreover, he said, the Court’s credibility and moral authority rests on its objectivity, impartiality and non-discrimination.
“Selectivity and double standards erode trust and credibility,” Ambassador Jafdoon warned.
APP/ift