GENEVA, Feb 26 (AFP): Killings of civilians in Sudan's war more than doubled in 2025 compared with the previous year, the United Nations rights chief said Thursday, warning that thousands more dead are unidentified or remain missing.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million people and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
"This war is ugly. It's bloody and it's senseless," Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council, blaming both sides, which have so far rejected any humanitarian truce. He also blamed foreign sponsors funding what he called a "high-tech" conflict.
"In 2025, my office's documentation points to an over two and a half times increase in killings of civilians compared with the previous year. Many thousands are still missing or unidentified," Turk said.
There have been no official figures on the conflict's overall death toll.
Turk condemned what he called the "heinous and ruthless" brutalities committed, including sexual violence, summary executions and arbitrary detentions.
He highlighted the "carnage" inflicted by the RSF in an April attack on the Zamzam displacement camp and again in October in ElFasher, then the regular army's last foothold in western Darfur.
Rape, gang rape, sexual torture and slavery have also surged, Turk said, with more than 500 victims documented in 2025. "The bodies of Sudanese women and girls have been weaponised to terrorise communities."
In a statement, the foreign ministers of the Sudan core group at the UN Human Rights Council said the RSF-led violence in El-Fasher "constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity and bears the hallmarks of genocide".
Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Britain said they would form a coalition "to prevent further atrocities in Sudan and support the Sudanese people in laying the foundations for future justice".
Meanwhile, the UN rights chief decried Friday mounting threats to women's rights worldwide, highlighting rampant femicide and horrific abuse exposed in cases like that of US predator Jefferey Epstein.
"Violence against women, including femicide, is a global emergency. Around 50,000 women and girls worldwide were killed in 2024, most by family members," Volker Turk told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
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