Britain on Monday sanctioned 15 senior military commanders, militia leaders and security officials from both sides of Sudan's war, accusing them of atrocities including conflict-related sexual violence, torture and attacks on civilians linked to the fall of El Fasher, the UK government and Reuters reported.
Source: GOV.UK
The measures impose a travel ban and an asset freeze on those designated. The UK government said the 15 are drawn from both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and named among them Hussein Abu Jalak, an RSF colonel it linked to atrocities during the siege of El Fasher, and Al-Nour Ahmed Adam, known as Al-Qubba, whom it identified as present and playing a prominent role in besieging and attacking the city. The allegations are the UK government's accusations; the commanders are described as suspected of atrocities.
Source: Reuters via Northland News Radio
The announcement comes one year after El Fasher fell to the RSF following an eighteen-month siege. The UK said that in the days after the city fell, civilians were massacred and women and girls were subjected to horrific sexual violence. It said the sanctions follow the release of UK-funded reporting by the Centre for Information Resilience, which documented what it described as a campaign of systematic starvation and conflict-related sexual violence against civilians by both sides in the conflict.
What London pledged alongside the sanctions
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the war in Sudan has created a humanitarian catastrophe, and that a year on from the atrocities in El Fasher, UK-funded investigations have shown that rape and starvation are still being weaponised against the people of Sudan. He said the perpetrators must be held accountable and support from all external backers to the warring parties must end.
Alongside the sanctions, Britain allocated £5 million to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan, including sexual and reproductive healthcare, maternal health services, psychosocial support and safe spaces for women and girls, and a further £10 million for the humanitarian response, including clean water and sanitation around Tawila and health and protection services in El Obeid.
Yaani: the two packages together are £15 million — dedh crore pounds (£1.5 crore), about $20 million in US terms, yaani roughly 2 crore dollars.
The UK said the new CIR reporting shows the tactics used during the El Fasher siege are still being deployed across Sudan, including siege tactics, drone attacks on civilian infrastructure and humanitarian operations, and the systematic obstruction of aid, against a backdrop of rising famine risk driven by attacks, aid obstruction and El Nino-induced drought. Monday's designations follow five previous rounds of UK sanctions over Sudan's conflict.