ALBAWABA - A British-drafted resolution that calls on Sudan's warring parties to cease hostilities and provide safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines is being discussed by the UN Security Council, as war continues to tear through the African country.
"Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including widespread rape of women and girls," Britain's UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters earlier this month when Britain acquired the Security Council president for November.
Britain intended to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible, officials added. To be enacted, a resolution requires at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, or China.
According to the United Nations, approximately 25 million people require urgent aid as starvation strikes displacement camps and 11 million people flee their homes. Almost 3 million of them have gone to other nations.
Britain's draft reads "demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives throughout Sudan and demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities".
Further, it "calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan".
The document also asks for the Adre border crossing with Chad to stay open for assistance supplies "and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments".
