GENEVA (Reuters) -A special session on the situation in al-Fashir, Sudan, opened on Friday at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva following grave concerns about mass killings during the fall of the city to paramilitary forces.
States will consider a draft resolution which requests a U.N. fact-finding mission to conduct an urgent inquiry into recent violations allegedly committed by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies in al-Fashir, as well as identifying the perpetrators.
In an opening address to delegates, U.N. human rights chief urged the international community to act.
“There has been too much pretence and performance, and too little action. It must stand up against these atrocities – a display of naked cruelty used to subjugate and control an entire population,” said the High Commissioner for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Volker Turk.
The fall of al-Fashir on October 26 to the RSF cemented their control of the Darfur region in the more than 2-1/2-year civil war with the Sudanese army.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, additional reporting by Emme Farge; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
