On the escalation of the war and the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan

–having regard to the 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for Sudan, published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),

–having regard to statements by the UN Secretary-General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the war in Sudan and the grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by all parties,

–having regard to the Council conclusions of 20 October 2025 on Sudan and earlier EU statements on the conflict, including those marking the second anniversary of the war,

–having regard to the joint statement by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Commission of 28 October 2025 on the seizure of El Fasher,

–having regard to the reports of the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council and the fact-finding mechanisms on Sudan,

–having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.whereas on 15 April 2023, Sudan was plunged into a devastating war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias, rooted in decades of authoritarian rule, militarisation, resource extraction and impunity for grave human rights violations; whereas the Sudanese Revolution of 2018-2019 represented a historic, grassroots and youth-led uprising demanding democracy, economic justice and the dismantling of Sudan’s deeply entrenched militarised regime; whereas millions mobilised in mass strikes, neighbourhood committees, trade unions and women’s organisations to end decades of dictatorship; whereas the hopes of this revolution were deliberately betrayed and crushed by the SAF and the RSF, including through the June 2019 massacre in Khartoum, repeated coups and the systematic exclusion and repression of the civilian and revolutionary forces who led the transition; whereas the current war is the direct consequence of this counter-revolution imposed by both the SAF and the RSF against the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people;

B.whereas this war has become one of the world’s worst crises, with over 25 million people – more than half of Sudan’s population – in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, and with millions on the brink of starvation;

C.whereas according to the UN and other sources, more than 14 million people have been displaced within Sudan and into neighbouring countries since the start of the conflict, making this one of the largest displacement crises globally;

D.whereas the conflict has caused massive destruction in Khartoum and many other urban centres, spreading to Darfur, Kordofan, Gezira and other regions, with both parties conducting indiscriminate shelling and airstrikes, laying siege to cities and deliberately obstructing humanitarian aid;

E.whereas a UN-backed IPC analysis has confirmed famine (IPC phase 5) in the besieged cities of El Fasher (North Darfur) and Kadugli (South Kordofan), following prolonged sieges and the systematic obstruction of food, water and medical supplies; whereas more than 21 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with hundreds of thousands in catastrophic conditions;

F.whereas numerous reports document atrocities and violations by both the SAF and the RSF, including massacres, ethnically targeted killings, widespread conflict-related sexual violence, forced disappearances, torture and the deliberate starvation of civilians as a method of warfare; whereas the RSF and associated militias have been credibly accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing in parts of Darfur;

G.whereas in recent weeks, Sudan has witnessed one of the worst mass atrocities of the entire conflict, with RSF fighters and aligned militias carrying out large-scale massacres of civilians in and around El Fasher, including the systematic execution of displaced people, the burning of entire neighbourhoods, the targeting of hospitals and shelters, and the widespread use of sexual violence; whereas credible reports from UN agencies, humanitarian actors and local resistance committees describe scenes of mass graves, civilians being hunted house-to-house, and deliberate attacks on ethnic communities, amounting to war crimes, crimes against humanity and potentially genocide; whereas the international community – including the EU – has utterly failed to prevent these atrocities or exert meaningful pressure on the external actors enabling the perpetrators;

H.whereas women, children, persons with disabilities, older people and marginalised ethnic groups have been disproportionately affected by violence, displacement, hunger and the collapse of essential services;

I.whereas attacks against healthcare facilities, humanitarian workers, human rights defenders, journalists, local mutual-aid networks and resistance committees have severely hampered efforts to provide life-saving assistance;

J.whereas the war has deep regional ramifications, destabilising neighbouring countries, fuelling cross-border arms flows, trafficking and refugee movements, and interacting with climate-driven crises and long-standing resource conflicts;

K.whereas multiple external actors, including regional and international powers, have provided arms, funding, political backing and logistical support to both the SAF and the RSF, thus prolonging and intensifying the conflict in pursuit of geopolitical, commercial and extractive interests;

L.whereas despite calls from the UN and the AU to halt arms supplies to the belligerents, reports indicate continuing violations of existing UN arms embargo measures on the Darfur region, and there is still no comprehensive UN arms embargo covering all of Sudan; whereas arms exports from several EU Member States to actors in the wider region have, directly or indirectly, enabled the flow of weapons, equipment and dual-use technologies to Sudanese belligerents, despite the clear risk of diversion and despite repeated warnings from civil society and UN expert panels; whereas this contradicts the EU’s own Common Position on arms exports;

M.whereas the EU and its Member States have expressed concern, adopted targeted sanctions and provided humanitarian funding, yet EU action has remained fragmented, slow and largely reactive, and has failed to prevent the escalation of the conflict and the unfolding famine;

N.whereas the EU has pledged more than EUR 270 million in humanitarian assistance for Sudan and neighbouring countries in 2025; whereas the UN appeals for Sudan remain dangerously underfunded and humanitarian organisations face severe access, security and bureaucratic constraints;

O.whereas the UN Secretary-General has warned that the war in Sudan is ‘spiralling out of control’ and urged the international community to use all its leverage to halt the fighting, stop weapons flows into Sudan, protect civilians and support accountability;

P.whereas Sudanese civil society, including resistance committees, professional associations, women’s and youth organisations, trade unions, local mutual-aid groups and marginalised communities, have long struggled for democracy, social justice and civilian rule, and have been sidelined by elite-driven and externally brokered political processes;

Q.whereas debt, austerity policies and externally imposed economic reforms have undermined Sudan’s public services, social protection and food sovereignty, compounding the impact of the conflict, the climate crisis and global food price shocks;

R.whereas the EU’s migration and border externalisation policies risk prioritising containment and deterrence over protection, rights-based mobility and solidarity with refugees and migrants from Sudan and the wider region; whereas the EU’s prioritisation of migration deterrence, border control and counter-terrorism cooperation with Sudan between 2016 and 2021 – including through the Khartoum Process – enabled RSF networks to gain political legitimacy and resources, despite their well-documented involvement in atrocities in Darfur and in gold-mining operations controlled by RSF-linked business entities;

S.whereas the EU and several of its Member States have for decades maintained political, economic and security partnerships with successive Sudanese regimes, including during periods marked by grave violations in Darfur and other marginalised regions; whereas such relations – including training, technical assistance, migration control arrangements and externalised border management programmes – have in some cases contributed to the empowerment of military, intelligence and paramilitary structures later involved in atrocities;

T.whereas European companies, including in the extractive, agro-industrial, surveillance technology and logistics sectors, have benefited from permissive investment frameworks and opaque concessions in Sudan for decades; whereas insufficient human rights due diligence obligations and weak EU enforcement have allowed certain corporate actors to operate in ways that may indirectly support militarised elites, feed resource contestation or contribute to displacement and environmental degradation;

1.Strongly condemns the ongoing war in Sudan and the escalation of violence by the SAF, the RSF and all affiliated militias and armed groups; deplores the deliberate targeting of civilians, the use of starvation as a method of warfare and the widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law across the country;

2.Expresses its deepest solidarity with the people of Sudan, in particular with those in the areas most affected by siege, famine, displacement and indiscriminate attacks; pays tribute to Sudanese civil society organisations, resistance committees, women’s, workers and youth movements, and humanitarian workers risking their lives to save others;

3.Demands an immediate, nationwide, permanent ceasefire; calls for an end to sieges, aerial bombardments and drone strikes against, and the artillery shelling of, populated areas and civilian infrastructure; insists on the immediate demilitarisation of cities and towns and the withdrawal of all armed groups from civilian areas;

4.Calls for the establishment, under the auspices of the UN and the AU, and with the meaningful leadership of Sudanese civil society, of an inclusive peace process aimed at a civilian-led political transition that addresses the root causes of conflict, including militarisation, impunity, marginalisation of peripheral regions, structural inequalities, land and resource disputes and patriarchal power structures;

5.Condemns in the strongest terms the atrocities and crimes perpetrated by the RSF and associated militias, including massacres, ethnically targeted killings, conflict-related sexual violence, forced disappearances, torture, attacks on medical and humanitarian facilities, and the use of hunger and blockade tactics; stresses that such acts may constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity and, in some cases, genocide; expresses deep concern at the widespread and systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and a tool of terror against women and girls and calls for accountability for such crimes and comprehensive support for survivors;

6.Welcomes the ongoing investigations by the ICC into crimes in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan; calls for full cooperation with the ICC, including the arrest and surrender of individuals subject to warrants, and for the expansion of investigative mandates to cover the entirety of the current conflict;

7.Calls on the UN Security Council to urgently adopt and effectively implement a comprehensive, country-wide arms embargo on all of Sudan, covering the supply, sale or transfer of arms, ammunition, military equipment and related assistance to all parties to the conflict, including the SAF, the RSF and all affiliated militias, and to strengthen monitoring and enforcement mechanisms; calls for targeted and scalable restrictive measures against financiers, arms suppliers and logistical facilitators of the RSF, including those operating through complex corporate structures, free zone jurisdictions, neighbouring countries or regional stakeholders; expresses concern, in that regard, that the arms embargo on Sudan is being circumvented through the export of components rather than weapons;

8.Urges all states, in particular regional and international powers allegedly providing military, financial, intelligence or political support to the belligerents – including, among others, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Türkiye and Iran – to immediately cease such support, to uphold their obligations under international law and to use their influence to secure a ceasefire and a civilian-led peace process;

9.Urges the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to address UAE-linked RSF financing and procurement networks in all relevant EU–UAE dialogues and negotiations, including discussions on trade, anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, and raw materials, and to include binding due diligence and traceability provisions requiring the full chain of custody for gold and other raw materials entering the EU to ensure they do not originate from RSF-controlled or RSF-laundered supply chains; urges the Council and the European External Action Service to systematically raise UAE-linked RSF financing and procurement issues at all diplomatic levels and, where necessary, to propose further restrictive measures against entities and individuals that continue to enable RSF abuses despite due warnings;

10.Calls on the Council and the Member States to:

(a)adopt a coherent and principled EU position demanding an immediate nationwide ceasefire, unfettered humanitarian access and a civilian-led political process;

(b)urgently expand and strengthen targeted restrictive measures against individuals and entities, both Sudanese and foreign, responsible for or complicit in serious violations of international law, including those supplying weapons, financing or logistical support to the belligerents;

(c)ensure that such measures are designed to have an impact on perpetrators and enablers and not the civilian population;

11.Demands that the Council and the Member States strictly enforce the EU Common Position on arms exports, and immediately suspend and revoke any export licences and transfers of arms, surveillance technologies, components and dual-use items to states and corporate actors that may directly or indirectly feed the conflict in Sudan or enable regional repression; urges the EU to make all political relations with regional actors conditional on concrete, verifiable steps to halt their support for the SAF or the RSF, including suspending arms transfers, shutting down private logistical channels, ending drone shipments and stopping the financing of gold and agricultural exports controlled by the belligerents; expresses deep concern at the credible investigative reports indicating that networks based in, or operating through, the UAE – either on the mainland, in free zones, in ports managed by Ports of Dubai or on remote Emirati military bases – have been involved in supplying weapons, dual-use items, financing and logistics to the RSF and in laundering conflict gold and other revenues, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and EU restrictive measures;

12.Calls for the EU and its Member States to significantly increase flexible, principled and multi-year humanitarian funding for Sudan and neighbouring countries hosting refugees, ensuring that assistance is inclusive and channelled in close cooperation with local civil society and community-based organisations; stresses that funding must not be conditioned on migration control objectives;

13.Urges the parties to the Sudanese conflict and all external actors to guarantee immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access across conflict lines and borders, including through cross-border and cross-line working methods and the establishment of humanitarian corridors based on needs and in line with humanitarian principles, and to remove all bureaucratic and political obstacles to the delivery of aid;

14.Calls for the immediate lifting of sieges and blockades of cities, camps and rural areas, including in El Fasher, Kadugli and other famine-affected and at-risk locations, and for the restoration of access to markets, farmland, water sources, health facilities and schools;

15.Condemns the use of starvation and the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian assistance as methods of warfare; recalls that such acts may constitute war crimes under international law and must be subject to investigation and prosecution;

16.Calls for the EU and its Member States to support and strengthen UN and AU human rights monitoring and investigative mechanisms on Sudan, including the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, and to ensure the collection and preservation of evidence for future accountability processes, paying specific attention to sexual and gender-based violence and crimes against children;

17.Stresses the central role of Sudanese civil society, resistance committees, trade unions, women’s and youth organisations, minority and marginalised communities, and other grassroots actors in any political settlement; calls for the EU to prioritise their participation, protection and resourcing, including through direct, flexible funding and safe-space initiatives;

18.Reaffirms that a genuinely civilian-led transition is the only viable path forward towards sustainable peace in Sudan; calls for an inclusive roadmap towards democracy, including a permanent ceasefire, the demilitarisation of politics, credible and transparent elections, and civilian oversight of security sector reform, in line with human rights and democratic norms; calls for comprehensive transitional justice including truth-seeking, reparations, vetting and institutional reform, forensic investigations and international prosecutions for atrocity crimes, paying particular attention to conflict-related sexual violence and crimes against children;

19.Reaffirms Sudan’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity; opposes any foreign military intervention in Sudan that is not explicitly mandated by the UN Security Council; rejects external attempts to impose top-down political deals that exclude grassroots forces and reproduce militarised power structures;

20.Calls for a comprehensive debt moratorium and, where appropriate, the cancellation of Sudan’s external debt, and for a halt to the austerity-driven conditionalities of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which undermine public services, social protection, food sovereignty and climate resilience; insists that any future economic support must prioritise social justice, public health, education, sustainable agriculture, land rights and environmentally just reconstruction;

21.Calls for the EU and its Member States to support initiatives for democratic control over natural resources and to ensure that European and other multinational corporations operating in Sudan, including in the extractive and agribusiness sectors, respect human rights, abstain from any actions that would make them complicit in the conflict and are held accountable for abuses or environmental damage;

22.Urges the EU to adopt a rights-based approach to refugees and migrants from Sudan and the wider region, including by:

(a)ensuring access to EU territory and to asylum procedures at EU borders;

(b)expanding safe and legal pathways for resettlement, family reunification and humanitarian admission;

(c)ending pushbacks, arbitrary detention and the externalisation policies that trap people in unsafe countries or expose them to trafficking, violence and refoulement;

23.Calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase support for countries neighbouring Sudan that are hosting Sudanese refugees, while ensuring that such support strengthens local public services and community-based protection and is not used to finance security-focused border control or abusive detention practices;

24.Calls for international financial institutions, donors and the EU to mainstream gender equality, child protection and disability rights in all humanitarian and early recovery interventions in Sudan, including by providing specialised services for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and psychosocial support;

25.Strongly supports the efforts of UN agencies, the AU, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and other regional organisations to broker a ceasefire and an inclusive political process; calls, however, for a critical review of past elite-centric and securitised approaches, including the 2019-2021 transitional arrangements, and urges a shift towards genuinely inclusive and socio-economically just peacebuilding that addresses the structural causes of violence;

26.Calls on the EU Delegation and Member States’ embassies to enhance protection measures for human rights defenders, journalists, trade unionists, women’s rights activists and other at-risk individuals in Sudan and in exile, including through emergency visas, relocation schemes and support for secure communication;

27.Strongly criticises the years-long political engagement of several Member States and the EU with Sudanese military and security structures, including cooperation related to migration control and border externalisation, which contributed to empowering actors now responsible for atrocities; calls for a full independent review of EU involvement in Sudan from 2011 onwards, including the impact of the Khartoum Process, security cooperation, and development programmes tied to migration-deterrence objectives;

28.Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that future agreements with non-EU countries are designed and implemented to prevent any risk of increasing corruption, empowering or benefiting paramilitary forces or enabling the violation of human rights by state and non-state actors;

29.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the authorities and people of Sudan, the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the League of Arab States, the United Nations Secretary-General and the United Nations Security Council.