United Nations rights chief Volker Turk visits Sudan and says individuals in nation are going by means of ‘hell’.
Revealed On 18 Jan 2026
United Nations rights chief Volker Turk says the battle in Sudan has put its individuals by means of “horror and hell”, as Sudan’s inhabitants continues to face acute food insecurity and displacement.
Throughout his first go to to Sudan because the battle started in April 2023, Turk stated it was “despicable” that funds that “ought to be used to alleviate the struggling of the inhabitants” have been as a substitute spent on superior weapons, particularly drones.
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The UN has repeatedly warned of the involvement of international actors in Sudan’s civil battle.
The United Arab Emirates has been repeatedly accused of supplying the paramilitary Speedy Help Forces (RSF) with weapons, assist and political backing regardless of Abu Dhabi’s consistent denial.
In the meantime, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) is backed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The military has additionally reportedly obtained arms, together with drones, from Iran and Turkiye.
However Turk stated from Port Sudan, on Sudan’s Pink Beach, that the nation was going through “the rising militarisation of society by all events to the battle, together with by means of the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of kids”.
In 2023, the nation was plunged right into a lethal civil battle after the SAF and RSF fought to safe energy.
‘Horrific violations’
The UN rights chief defined that he had heard testimony of “insufferable” atrocities from survivors of assaults in Darfur, warning of comparable crimes going down within the present epicentre of the preventing, the Kordofan area.
He stated that the testimonies should be heard by “the commanders of this battle and people who are arming, funding and taking advantage of this battle”.
“We should be certain that the perpetrators of those horrific violations face justice whatever the affiliation,” Turk stated, warning that repeated assaults on civilian infrastructure might represent “battle crimes”.
The UN chief referred to as on either side to “stop insupportable assaults towards civilian objects which are indispensable to the civilian inhabitants, together with markets, well being services, faculties and shelters”.
Each side within the battle have been accused of committing battle crimes, however there was a specific give attention to the RSF, which was accused by monitoring teams of killing at least 1,500 people in its October seize of el-Fasher in Darfur.
In response to the UN Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in 2025, 30.4 million individuals, out of a inhabitants of 46.8 million, in Sudan are in want of humanitarian help.
The inhabitants is going through an acute meals insecurity and a diet disaster, particularly within the Darfur and Kordofan areas. On the similar time, illness outbreaks are worsening the scenario.
Furthermore, Sudan is coping with the world’s largest displacement disaster, with an estimated 13.6 million individuals displaced by the continuing preventing.
