European Greens Demand Urgent Action to Protect Civilians in Sudan

The European Green Party is deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. Civilians are facing brutal violence, displacement and the destruction of the environment. We stand in solidarity with civilian victims and call for immediate coordinated international action to stop the violence and address the crisis’s root causes, including decades of political marginalization, militarization, and foreign interference.

The genocide in Darfur yielded one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st century. Nearly two decades later, the region is again ensnared in armed conflict with warring parties committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law on a scale that demands an urgent global response.

Sudan is now one of the world’s gravest crises of forced displacement and hunger. Since April 2023, the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has resulted in hundreds of thousands murdered and over 13 million displaced. There are reportedly 17 million children out of school, 25 million people facing severe food insecurity, and the complete collapse of state structures.

The RSF’s assault on El Fasher on 26 October 2025 resulted in mass killings, ethnic violence, systematic sexual violence, destruction of health facilities and the killing of hundreds of patients inside the city’s maternity hospital. Many of those who attempted to flee El Fasher were exploited, tortured, or executed. Those who managed to escape to humanitarian reception centres arrived severely malnourished, perilously ill, and traumatized after making the long journey on foot.

United Nations investigations confirm that RSF and SAF forces have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, including extrajudicial killings, torture, the systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war with girls, women, and children facing rape, abduction, forced marriage, sexual slavery, and severe stigma, starvation as a method of war, widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, and obstruction of humanitarian aid. These violations, which reflect a deliberate and ethnically motivated strategy to terrorize populations and dismantle community structures, have collectively raised the possibility of acts of genocide, as described in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.

Environmental degradation and climate stress — including desertification, land degradation, and gold mining controlled by armed groups — are exacerbating the conflict and entrenching violence as communities compete over increasingly scarce resources.

The interference of foreign actors and geopolitical interests, such as the provision of military equipment to the warring parties, in particular the United Arab Emirates’s (UAE) support to the RSF, has prolonged the fighting and aggravated its consequences.

The crisis demands urgent action from the EU and national governments. This action must be in collaboration with Sudanese civil society, including journalists, scholars, human rights defenders, women-led resistance committees, and diaspora organisations.

As European Greens, we:

• Condemn the atrocities committed by the RSF in Darfur, El Fasher, El Geneina, El Obeid and other areas, including mass killings, ethnic cleansing, systematic rape, sexual violence as a war tool, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of homes and attacks on humanitarian facilities

• Condemn the establishment of a parallel governing authority in areas controlled by the RSF

• Condemn SAF violations, including indiscriminate aerial bombardments, killings, torture in detention and obstruction of aid

• Call for an immediate, nationwide, permanent cessation of all hostilities, including an end to indiscriminate attacks, sieges, starvation tactics, and sexual violence. The EGP also supports the establishment of an independent monitoring mechanism for the ceasefire, the protection of all civilians and civilian objects, rapid and unhindered humanitarian access and corridors for civilians in need, without political or military interference, and full compliance with obligations under international law

• Call on the EU and national governments to urgently increase funding for international organisations such as the United Nations Population Fund and local humanitarian responders, reversing recent cuts

• Support independent investigations into war crimes and human rights abuses, and use national criminal justice systems and the International Criminal Court, to ensure perpetrators are held accountable

• Recall that, under the Genocide Convention and international customary law, all states have an obligation to prevent and punish genocide wherever there is a serious risk of its commission

• Acknowledge that European technology is helping fighters in Sudan, and ensure tightening export controls and monitoring so that European-made goods stop fuelling the conflict

• Coordinate with the African Union and the United Nations to establish and support a unified diplomatic track to overcome fragmented mediation efforts

• Reinforce the EU Special Representative for the Horn of Africa to bring together regional and international actors to restore a coherent mediation framework aligned with African-led peace efforts

• Freeze the EU–United Arab Emirates (UAE) Free Trade Agreement negotiations until the UAE demonstrably ceases support to the RSF

• Sanction all individuals and entities responsible for arms transfers, financing, or enabling atrocities, including those operating through shell companies, gold supply chains, and foreign mercenary networks

• Apply targeted asset freezes and travel bans to RSF and SAF leadership implicated in war crimes

• Expand resettlement programmes, ensure access to asylum, end forced returns, and investigate abuses committed by border authorities and object the externalization of asylum processing to unsafe third countries

• Use universal jurisdiction in EU member states to prosecute perpetrators who enter EU territory

• Recognize environmental degradation as a driver and consequence of conflict and call for the integration of climate justice into all humanitarian and peace-building strategies

• Ensure EU mandatory due diligence legislation covering raw materials from Sudan to interrupt supply chains linked to RSF financing, including gold, gum arabic, and agricultural exports

• Ensure accountability for corporations contributing to environmental destruction or benefiting from conflict-related exploitation

• Work towards and finance climate adaptation initiatives for displacement-affected regions with community-led design and implementation

• Call for strict implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2791 (2025) and expansion of the Darfur arms embargo to all Sudan

• Call for full adherence to all UN Security Council resolutions, the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan, and expansion of the Darfur arms embargo to all Sudan to prevent the flow of weapons to all warring parties

• Call on all states, particularly the UAE, to immediately stop supplying arms, ammunition, drones and equipment to the RSF, SAF or affiliated armed groups

• Call on all EU Member States, in line with the Arms Trade Treaty and the EU Common Position on arms exports, to immediately suspend the authorization of arms transfers to States credibly alleged to be supplying arms to parties to the conflict in Sudan, including the UAE and other regional actors, where there is a clear risk that such arms could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law

• Recognize Sudanese women’s and feminist groups’ leadership in resistance, humanitarian action, and peacebuilding and call for direct funding to women’s organizations, youth committees, local responders, independent journalists, and human rights defenders

Background

During and after the 2019 Sudanese Revolution, various civil actors worked together to push for a democratically elected civil government. Their efforts were set back by a military coup in 2021 led by the current leaders of the SAF and the RSF.