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strikeSep 11, 2026

UN extends partial Sudan arms embargo for a month while talks continue on US demand for a total ban

Summary

UNITED NATiONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to briefly extend the arms embargo on Sudan’s western Darfur region while negotiations continue on a contentious U.S. proposal to expand the embargo throughout the country to pressure the warring parties to end their more than three-year conflict. The uphill struggle the United States and its allies face during the monthlong extension was evident in speeches after the vote. Russia, which holds veto power in the council and backs the Sudanese government in its fight against paramilitary forces, vowed to prevent any expansion of the arms embargo. Moscow made its “red lines” clear during closed negotiations, Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva said. “We will not allow even a hint of broadening the restrictions by the council on Sudan.” The Security Council imposed an arms embargo on the vast Darfur region after violence erupted in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the authoritarian government in Khartoum, then led by Omar al-Bashir. The government responded with air attacks and a ground offensive by local nomadic Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, who are accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people died in the conflict and 2.7 million fled their homes. At a council meeting on Aug. 24, the United States urged a countrywide arms embargo to push the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to negotiate an end to fighting that began in April 2023. The current war has killed at least 59,000 people, though aid groups warn the number could be much higher. It has displaced some 13 million people and pushed parts of the country into famine, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Evstigneeva asked why the U.S. was trying to expand the arms embargo now when government forces “have a definite advantage on the ground,” and not in 2023 when the RSF was threatening the capital, Khartoum, and other cities. It is the government that guarantees the country’s unity and institutions, and protects its civilians, she said. China’s deputy U.N. ambassador Sun Lei warned that extending the embargo would worsen the humanitarian situation and might lead to the fragmentation of Sudan, which would threaten regional stability. Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Al-Harith Mohamed told the council that a total arms embargo goes against the U.N. Charter’s guarantee that countries have the right to self-defense and their armed forces have the right to produce and acquire weapons to protect their sovereignty. But U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey Bartos said another long-term extension of the Darfur embargo “is not an option,” calling it outdated and “insufficient to address the realities of the war today.” The council also needs to sanction people who commit “horrific actions,” including sexual violence, kidnapping for ransom and attacks on humanitarian personnel, he said. “Inaction means more suffering and death,” Bartos warned. “That is unacceptable, and we refuse to rubber stamp another year of maintaining the status quo.” He reiterated the U.S. call for an end to the flow of arms to the belligerents from external parties. And he decried the attacks on aid convoys, pointing to last week's loss of over 50 metric tons of aid in an aerial attack on clearly identified World Food Program trucks in South Kordofan. WFP acting director Carl Skau said in an interview with The Associated Press during his recent visit to Sudan that a lack of funding has forced the agency to reduce the number of people it assists from about 5 million at the beginning of the year to 3.5 million. “We risk now having to cut even further,” he warned. “The world keeps sending weapons when they should be sending food and shelter, and when the focus and the energy and effort should really be on trying to bring an end to this conflict,” Skau said. ___ Fay Abuelgasim contributed to this report from Cairo

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  • EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated PressBy EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press

    UNITED NATiONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to briefly extend the arms embargo on Sudan’s western Darfur region while negotiations continue on a contentious U.S. proposal to expand the embargo throughout the country to pressure the warring parties to …

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Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, has relied on the Red Sea ever since Iran's Hormuz blockade choked off its shipments via the Gulf. Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, congratulated the Houthis on their "resounding victory" on Friday.

Farea Al-Muslimi, research fellow at Chatham House, told AFP: "Now the Iranians don't only control ... the Strait of Hormuz, but they control the other most strategic chokepoint in the Middle East." Oil prices have soared past US$100 a barrel this week, while average US diesel prices topped US$6 for the first time on Friday - a potential headache for US President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections.

The Houthis' military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said navigation through the Bab al-Mandab Strait was "safe" for all but Saudi Arabia following the latest advances. A witness told AFP that gunmen were "deploying along the Bab al-Mandab shore and are driving around in military vehicles".

The capture of the islands, particularly Mayyun in the middle of the strait, heightens the Houthis' ability to attack Saudi tankers, which they have been targeting since July. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, has relied on the Red Sea ever since Iran's Hormuz blockade choked off its shipments via the Gulf.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, congratulated the Houthis on their "resounding victory" on Friday. Farea Al-Muslimi, research fellow at Chatham House, told AFP: "Now the Iranians don't only control ... the Strait of Hormuz, but they control the other most strategic chokepoint in the Middle East.

" Oil prices have soared past US$100 a barrel this week, while average US diesel prices topped US$6 for the first time on Friday - a potential headache for US President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections. The Houthis' military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said navigation through the Bab al-Mandab Strait was "safe" for all but Saudi Arabia following the latest advances.

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Houthi supporter Abdulhamid Dhaifallah lauded the group's "great victories" in and along the strait. "They have been preparing for this front for four years," the Sanaa resident said. Satellite images from Copernicus Sentinel Data taken on Thursday showed black smoke billowing near Medina, along the general route of the East-West pipeline that carries Saudi oil to its Red Sea coast.

The Saudi energy ministry on Friday announced that attacks led to the closure of the pipeline - which it had been increasingly using to bypass Hormuz - adding that injuries were recorded. "The East-West pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina regions was subjected to several attacks on Thursday morning," a ministry official told the SPA news agency, adding: "The pipeline was stopped as a precaution, and the attacks resulted in some injuries.

" Before the Red Sea offensive, the Houthis already controlled a large part of Yemen's north. They have recently attacked government-held areas in Hodeida and Taiz provinces and swept down the coast, seizing the port city of Mocha and Zuqar Island, north of Bab al-Mandab, on Thursday.

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While Saudi Arabia has also hit back with airstrikes and ordered troop reinforcements from Aden, where the internationally recognised government is based, it has failed to stop the Houthis' advance. Houthi media said two Saudi strikes hit Mocha's airport on Friday, while a local official said the city's seaport was hit by six missiles of unknown origin.

"I think the Saudis have tried everything they can to avoid this war, but I don't think they have any more choice," said Al-Muslimi. The ongoing exchanges risk reviving a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and sparked one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

The Houthis, after seizing Sanaa and forcing out the government, fought a Saudi-led coalition from 2015 until a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022.

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