UN Decries ‘Unrelenting’ Sudan War, Warns of Regional Spillover

June 27, 2025 (UNITED NATIONS) – A senior U.N. official told the Security Council on Friday that Sudan’s warring parties appear “unrelenting” in their pursuit of a military victory, warning of a growing risk that the two-year-old conflict could spill over and destabilise neighbouring countries.

Martha Pobee, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, pointed to a “serious escalation” at the Sudan-Libya-Egypt border involving Sudanese, RSF, and Libyan National Army-affiliated forces. She noted that the focus of fighting had shifted to the Darfur and Kordofan regions, with both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) utilising advanced weaponry, including long-range drones.

“For too long, the conflict in Sudan has gravely imperilled lives of Sudanese civilians,” Pobee said, detailing indiscriminate aerial assaults and a tripling of arbitrary civilian killings documented between February and April.

The human cost was laid bare in a harrowing briefing by Shayna Lewis, a senior advisor with the group Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities, who recently returned from Sudan. Lewis reported that 80% of health facilities in conflict zones are non-functional, with doctors using phone flashlights for surgery. She accused the RSF of deliberately destroying life-saving medical equipment, “because the RSF wants to deprive children of the ability to breathe.”

Lewis recounted UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports of 16 cases of rape of children under five, including four one-year-old babies, and accused the RSF of continuing a “genocide in Darfur.”

The issue of foreign interference was a flashpoint in the meeting. Lewis accused the United Arab Emirates of backing the RSF and Egypt of supporting the SAF. The UAE’s delegate rejected the “unfounded allegations,” while Egypt’s envoy “categorically rejected any interference.”

Several council members, including the United States, pushed to enforce an arms embargo and to quickly reconstitute a Panel of Experts to monitor sanctions and investigate violations. “The time for empty words of condolence and concern has passed,” said Denmark’s delegate. “It is time to act decisively for peace.”

Speaking on behalf of the council’s three African members – Algeria, Sierra Leone, and Somalia – as well as her own country, Guyana’s delegate urged the council to support mediation efforts that “preserve the central role of the African Union and the UN in the peace process.”

U.N. officials are pushing for a humanitarian pause, starting with a one-week truce in El Fasher, which Sudan’s government says it has agreed to. However, speakers detailed systematic obstruction of aid, with five aid workers killed on June 2. The representative of Greece described “starvation tactics, and intimidation that may amount to war crimes under international law.”

Despite the dire warnings, a path to peace remains elusive. “This tide of human suffering can only be stopped by the silencing of weapons,” Lewis said, but the warring parties remain committed to a military solution.