The Committee for Justice (CFJ) welcomes the decision of the United Nations Human Rights Council to extend the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan for an additional year, as stipulated in draft resolution A/HRC/60/L.18, adopted during the Council’s 60th session in Geneva.
The renewal of the mandate reaffirms the international community’s recognition of the gravity of ongoing human rights violations and war crimes committed by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as documented in the FFM’s latest report (A/HRC/60/22). The report concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe that both parties committed serious breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law, including mass killings, sexual and gender-based violence, torture, enforced disappearance, and the targeting of civilians on ethnic and gender grounds.
CFJ stressed that the continuation of the Mission’s work is vital for maintaining independent documentation of these atrocities, ensuring accountability for perpetrators, and keeping global attention focused on the catastrophic humanitarian situation, which has displaced over 12 million people and left 30 million in need of urgent aid.
The extension of the Fact-Finding Mission’s mandate represents a critical step toward justice for victims of Sudan’s conflict. It allows the collection of further evidence and testimonies to support future accountability mechanisms and reinforces efforts to end the entrenched culture of impunity in the country.
The Council’s decision followed the Mission’s alarming findings of large-scale atrocities in Darfur, Kordofan, and Khartoum, including attacks on civilian areas, sexual slavery, starvation as a weapon of war, and systematic persecution. The resolution condemns these violations, urges all parties to implement the Jeddah Declaration on the Protection of Civilians, and calls for safe and unhindered humanitarian access across Sudan’s borders and territories.
CFJ particularly welcomes paragraph 19 of the resolution, which formally extends the Mission’s mandate for one year, and paragraph 24, which calls on all parties to cooperate fully with the Mission, as well as on the international community to provide full logistical, technical, and financial support to enable its effective operation.
At the same time, CFJ reiterates its concern about the continued targeting of human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and humanitarian workers in Sudan. We urge the Human Rights Council, OHCHR, and member States to ensure that protection mechanisms are strengthened for those documenting violations on the ground, emphasizing that accountability cannot be achieved without safeguarding HRDs risking their lives to collect evidence and defend victims.
CFJ reaffirms its readiness to continue cooperating with the Fact-Finding Mission and other UN and regional mechanisms, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ Joint Fact-Finding Mission, to strengthen documentation and evidence-gathering efforts in support of future transitional justice processes. Such cooperation is essential to pave the way toward justice and
accountability for victims and to restore confidence in both national and international judicial systems.
Justice for Sudanese victims requires sustained international attention, independent investigations, and meaningful support for those documenting the truth. The renewal of the Mission’s mandate is a necessary step toward that goal, but it must be accompanied by genuine political will and sufficient resources to halt the ongoing conflict and achieve accountability.
