GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. Human Rights Council will hold an emergency session on the situation in al-Fashir, Sudan, following grave concerns about mass killings during the fall of the city to paramilitary forces, a U.N. diplomatic note showed on Thursday. The Rapid Support Forces’ capture of al-Fashir, the Sudanese army’s last holdout in Darfur, marked […]
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UN rights body plans emergency session on Sudan, document shows
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GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. Human Rights Council will hold an emergency session on the situation in al-Fashir, Sudan, following grave concerns about mass killings during the fall of the city to paramilitary forces, a U.N. diplomatic note showed on Thursday.
The Rapid Support Forces’ capture of al-Fashir, the Sudanese army’s last holdout in Darfur, marked a milestone in the African country’s more than two-and-a-half-year civil war, giving the paramilitary group de facto control of more than a quarter of the territory.
The group has since agreed to a proposal for a humanitarian ceasefire, it said on Thursday.
Over 50 states supported the motion led by Britain, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway including the required one-third of current voting members, the document showed.
The session will take place on Nov. 14, it said.
Hundreds of civilians and unarmed fighters may have been killed during the city’s fall, the U.N.’s human rights office has said.
Sudan, which has previously opposed international scrutiny of rights abuses there, is still considering its position on the event, its ambassador to the U.N. Hassan Hamid Hassan told reporters this week.
(Reporting by Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin; Editing by Madeline Chambers)