Thousands of missing persons in Sudan two years of war and an international expert confirms the need to protect civilians

Nuweir – appointed by the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights – explained that accurate statistics on the numbers of missing persons are still not available, indicating the variation of numbers between different sources. While the Sudanese Group for Defense of Laws and Freedoms estimates the number at about fifty thousand missing – as Nuweir said – local Sudanese human rights organizations have documented at least 3,177 cases, including more than five hundred women and three hundred children.

The UN expert emphasized that enforced disappearance and loss of people is a problem in Sudan, adding that these are not the only violations left by the “incomprehensible and unnecessary” war since April 2023.

Other violations included the destruction of residential areas, the violation of rights, the expulsion of civilians from their homes, the sexual rape, and the forced recruitment of youth by both parties to the conflict.

Human rights are not a priority among the parties

Despite the repeated calls of the United Nations to an urgent international movement to confront the crisis of missing persons, achieve justice and fairness of the victims, Mr. Nuweir expressed his regret that the parties concerned did not give “great importance to human rights issues.”

He went on, saying: “Unfortunately, according to the experiment, the parties concerned do not give great importance to human rights issues. There were repeated calls by the United Nations with all its organizations, by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by the United Nations Secretary -General for the protection of civilians and not to be thrown into this conflict, but unfortunately these calls and these movements did not produce any result.”

Regarding the challenges facing documenting cases of enforced disappearance, Mr. Nouisser drew attention to problems in the possibilities of communication, the security situation in the conflict areas, the frequency of families in reporting, and the weak interests of the judiciary and security. He explained that most of the registered cases are concentrated in conflict areas such as Khartoum, Sennar, Al -Fasher, the White Nile and the states of Darfur.

Civilians pay the price heavy

On the role of international organizations and human rights organizations in supporting the efforts to search for missing persons and provide support to their families, the UN expert pointed to the existence of social psychological support, and repeated calls for families to provide the information available to them.

He added that the United Nations is trying to provide legal assistance to families to submit complaints and demand an investigation, but he reaffirmed that human rights issues are not a priority for the parties to the conflict.

At the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Nuweir sent a strong message to the parties to the conflict, calling for “Civilians Protection”And confirming that “Sudanese civilians were the ones who paid the price of this unjustified and unjustified war.”. He stressed that thousands of families were forced to displacement and displacement in search of safety.