UN Security Council extends Darfur arms embargo amid US push for nationwide ban

The UN Security Council voted unanimously to briefly extend the arms embargo on Sudan’s western Darfur region while negotiations continue on a contentious US proposal to impose a nationwide ban.

All 15 Security Council members on Friday voted in favour of the one-month extension, which maintains the existing measures while allowing more time for negotiations on potential changes to the sanctions regime.

US Ambassador Jeff Bartos said Washington welcomed the adoption. “The current sanctions regime is over 20 years outdated, and is insufficient to address the realities of the war today,” he told the Security Council.

The US is proposing to expand the embargo throughout Sudan to pressure the warring parties to end their more than three-year conflict.

Bartos urged the council to “expand the arms embargo across the entire territory of Sudan, expand the listing measures to include horrific actions such as conflict-related sexual violence, kidnapping for ransom, and attacks on humanitarian personnel, and strengthen the mandate and effectiveness of the panel of experts.”

The Security Council imposed an arms embargo on the vast Darfur region after violence erupted in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum, then led by Omar al-Bashir.

The government responded with air attacks and a ground offensive by government-linked militias called the Popular Defence Forces, known by the rebels as “Janjaweed”, who are accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people died in the conflict, and 2.7 million fled their homes.

Russia, which holds veto power in the council and backs the Sudanese government in its fight against paramilitary forces, pledged to prevent any expansion of the arms embargo.

Moscow made its “red lines” clear during closed negotiations, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Anna Evstigneeva said Friday. “We will not allow even a hint of broadening the restrictions by the council on Sudan.”

Evstigneeva asked why the US was trying to expand the arms embargo now when government forces “have a definite advantage on the ground,” and not in 2023 when the RSF was threatening the capital, Khartoum, and other cities.

Sudan’s UN Ambassador Al-Harith Mohamed told the council that a total arms embargo goes against the UN Charter’s guarantee that countries have the right to self-defence and their armed forces have the right to produce and acquire weapons to protect their sovereignty.

At a council meeting on August 24, the US urged a countrywide arms embargo to push the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to negotiate an end to fighting that began in April 2023.

The current war has killed at least 59,000 people, though aid groups warn the number could be much higher. It has displaced some 13 million people and pushed parts of the country into famine, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.