Sudan's army and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting since April 15, 2023. | File photo/AFP

European Union countries on Monday announced sanctions against six Sudanese individuals accused of undermining peace and fueling the atrocious war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The EU Council said the sanctioned include General Abdulrahman Juma Barakallah, RSF’s West Darfur Commander accused of committing atrocities, instigating ethnically motivated killings, sexual violence and the looting and burning of communities.

The paramilitary group’s financial adviser, as well as a prominent tribal leader of the Mahamid clan affiliated with the RSF in West Darfur have also been blacklisted.

Sanctioned on the army’s side are the Commander of the Sudanese Air Force, and El Tahir Mohamed El Awad and the Director General of Defense Industry System (DIS), whose entity has already entered EU’s bad book.

They are accused of indiscriminate aerial bombing of densely populated residential areas since the beginning of the conflict.

The EU also listed Ali Ahmed Karti Mohamed, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs under the dethroned regime of Omar al-Bashir.

“Those targeted are subject to an asset freeze and a prohibition on the provision of funds or economic resources to them, directly or indirectly. Additionally, they are subject to travel bans in the European Union,” the bloc said.

On 22 January 2024, the EU Council adopted a first set of restrictive measures against six entities of the SAF and the RSF responsible for supporting activities undermining the stability and political transition of Sudan.

The Sudan war erupted in April 15, 2023, between the powerful military commanders – current junta leader General Abdal Fattah Al Burhan, and RSF’s General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, following a longstanding rivalry.

Since the start of the conflict, nearly eight million people, half of them children, have fled Sudan with around 560,000 seeking refuge in South Sudan, according to the UN.

In the besieged El Fasher city of North Darfur, medical aid group Doctors Without Borders known in short as MSF warns that hospitals continue to be attacked nine days after the UN Security Council called for an end to the fighting.

MSF said RSF shelling hit the pharmacy of the MSF-supported Saudi hospital in El Fasher on June 21, 2024 – killing a pharmacist was on her shift, and damaging the pharmacy building.

“Although the hospital remains open and is still treating patients, it has been damaged and is only partially functional,” the charity said, adding that more supplies are urgently needed to continue to treat the wounded.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees recently warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe that will force millions of people to flee Sudan to neighboring countries if nothing is done to end the war.

Filippo Grandi said in a visit to refugee camps and displacement centers in Kosti, in Sudan’s White Nile State, that the level of suffering there is “truly unconscionable.”