The Emergency Lawyers Association has called for extending the mandate of the international fact-finding mission on human rights violations in Sudan, stressing that the current conditions in the country require the mission’s continued work amid escalating attacks on civilians, worsening insecurity, and targeted killings carried out on ethnic and regional grounds.
The United Nations established the Sudan Fact-Finding Mission in October 2023, but it has been unable to enter the country during the past two years despite official requests. This has raised widespread concern among rights groups about the international community’s ability to directly monitor the situation on the ground.
The association said extending the mission’s mandate during the ongoing armed conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces is essential to prevent impunity, particularly for grave abuses against civilians, foremost among them extrajudicial killings.
In a statement issued Sept. 1, 2025, as part of a campaign led by Sudanese rights organizations and civilian anti-war groups, the association cited documented security attacks on civilians, including mass killings, forced displacement, and wide-scale internal displacement. It estimated that nearly 12 million people have been displaced since the conflict began.
The group also said that pervasive insecurity has become a major obstacle to uncovering the truth, while enabling the spread of misinformation promoted by the warring parties. It argued the fact-finding mission’s continued work is necessary to ensure an accurate and documented account of events on the ground.
The Emergency Lawyers Association said it had documented 16 large-scale massacres across Sudan in 2024, along with more than 40,000 civilian deaths resulting from the war. These figures, it said, reflect the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe and underscore the urgent need for the mission to remain active.
The United Nations extended the mission’s mandate in October 2024 for one additional year, but the association deemed the move insufficient without it being translated into tangible field measures. It also reported more than 630 incidents of violence and attacks targeting health institutions during the conflict, stressing the importance of the mission’s role in preparing periodic reports for the U.N. Security Council, the United Nations, and other relevant bodies to convey an accurate picture of the situation in Sudan to the international community.
