UN Security Council given one month to consider US push for Sudan-wide arms embargo

The UN Security Council has granted the United States one month to evaluate a proposal for a broader arms embargo across Sudan, following a 30-day extension of the current restrictions. Washington's urgency stems from a desire to negotiate more substantial changes to the sanctions regime, rather than simply renewing the existing sanctions for another year.

US representative Jeffrey Bartos emphasized that a long-term technical rollover was not a viable option, as some council members had voiced strong support for expanding the embargo to the entire territory of Sudan, while others advocated for maintaining the current status quo. The UK expressed support for strengthening the sanctions regime and welcomed the additional time for negotiations.

However, Russia firmly opposed expanding the embargo beyond Sudan's Darfur region. The US has been advocating for a UN arms embargo covering all of Sudan, arguing that cutting off weapons and foreign support to the country's warring parties is crucial to ending the civil war. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions, and created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, with around 20 million people facing hunger.

Despite these dire circumstances, Sudanese Armed Forces leader Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan has vowed to continue fighting until the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are defeated, rejecting repeated calls for a ceasefire. Both forces have been accused of committing numerous abuses during the war. US Ambassador to the UN Michael Waltz and senior adviser to President Donald Trump Massad Boulos made the case for the measure in an article published in Foreign Policy, highlighting the Security Council's opportunity to curb the flow of weapons that has sustained Sudan's civil war.

The US officials' intervention followed a UN independent fact-finding mission's warning that foreign arms, military technology, fighters, and logistical networks are bolstering both sides of the conflict and enabling sophisticated attacks on civilians, with evidence of foreign-supplied combat drones and loitering munitions being used in civilian-targeting attacks.

Additionally, recent reports by The New York Times and The Washington Post revealed that the Sudanese Armed Forces have not only employed chemical weapons but also maintained a secret stockpile that they later tried to conceal, including testing bombs in Sudan's desert and expanding their chemical weapons operation.