Delivered By: HE Mohamed Abushahab, Ambassador and Permanent Representative
Mr. President,
It is an absurdity that one of the warring parties can carry on politicizing this forum by disseminating false and baseless accusations.
This is a party that is directly responsible for the devastation of its own country.
A party that has a record of obstructing peace efforts and refusing to agree to an immediate ceasefire.
A party that has systematically expelled UN officials in a pattern of intimidation and interference in the UN’s life-saving work. This week it declared two senior World Food Programme officials Persona Non Grata as famine continues to spread. Last year the SAF expelled the Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and the year before that they expelled the Head of the UN Misson in Sudan.
The SAF walked away from the Humanitarian Truce despite intensive US and Quad efforts and unequivocal UAE support. The current escalation could have been avoided.
Mr. President,
The time for polite fictions and diplomatic niceties has passed.
In October 2021, the Sudanese Armed Forces seized power in a coup with their then-partner, the Rapid Support Forces.
They dismantled a fragile democratic transition and betrayed the hopes of an entire nation.
Since then, the SAF has sabotaged every credible peace effort. Its intransigence has led to the catastrophe that we are witnessing today.
Since April 2023, the SAF has followed the same script, bombing homes, schools, hospitals, and markets – and turning hunger into a weapon of war.
The SAF punished its own people with terror, with fire, and—according to credible reports—with chemical weapons.
The SAF has resurrected the same extremism it once unleashed on Darfur.
It derailed and dismissed every peace effort.
And only a few days ago, in Washington, it rejected a proposal for a nationwide ceasefire before discussions even began.
Each time negotiations faltered, the SAF answered with more bombs.
Each time diplomacy offered a door, the SAF slammed it shut.
The SAF’s maximalism, its military-first doctrine, has gained it nothing.
Only a Sudan in ruins and its people left to starve.
And as the horrors in El Fasher unfold, the SAF’s representatives, in breathtaking cynicism, denounce the consequences of its own war.
As if it were not the architect of Sudan’s misery.
Mr. President,
When the SAF walked away from last week’s attempt to reach a humanitarian ceasefire, it did so in full knowledge of what would follow.
It knew the price would be paid in Sudanese lives.
It knew El Fasher would burn—and it did not care.
Let us not forget that this is the very same command that waged war on Darfur twenty years ago, the very same command that shelters men indicted for genocide, and that now claims to defend and to mourn the civilians it once sought to destroy.
This is truly obscene.
For more than two years, my country, the United Arab Emirates, regardless of the lies repeated here, has been clear: both the SAF and the RSF have disqualified themselves from shaping Sudan’s future.
It is time the international community accepted that truth.
No speech delivered in this hall by a representative of one of the warring factions can disguise who they are or what they are.
The world must speak to Sudan’s civilians—not to their tormentors.
Thank you.