World News
United States asks the Security Council to extend Sudan's arms embargo to the whole country
By Staff Writer | 26 August 2026
The draft resolution would take the embargo beyond Darfur, confirm that drones sit inside it and enlarge the panel that monitors it. Sudan, Russia and China objected on the floor.
The United States has put a draft resolution before the Security Council that would extend the arms embargo on Sudan beyond Darfur to the whole country, and confirm that drones, drone systems and the technologies that go with them fall inside it. The proposal was set out at the Council's 10211th meeting on the morning of Monday 24 August, and it was opposed on the floor by Sudan, by Russia and, in more measured terms, by China.
The adviser speaking for the United States told the Council the draft carries four measures. The first extends the embargo beyond Darfur to all of Sudan. The second states that drones, drone systems and related technologies are covered by it. The third increases the number of experts on the panel that monitors the sanctions. The fourth directs that panel to work with other expert panels in the region so that breaches of the asset freeze, the travel ban and the embargo are reported more fully.
These measures do not seek to create any advantages or disadvantages among the parties or alter battlefield dynamics beyond pushing for a swift end to fighting
Massad Boulos, senior adviser to the United States President for Arab and African affairs
The measures the draft would alter were created by resolution 1591 in 2005. It imposed an arms embargo on the parties fighting in Darfur, together with targeted travel bans and asset freezes, and set up a panel of experts to help the sanctions committee monitor it and to investigate the financing and supply networks behind the armed groups. The draft would also apply the embargo to all parties operating in Sudanese territory, and demand that states end any direct or indirect support to the warring parties, whether logistical, financial or military.
What the Council was told before the argument started
Two senior United Nations officials briefed the meeting first. Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, described drones launched by both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces striking markets, schools, fuel stations and water infrastructure, and said the sophistication of the weapons in use continues to indicate outside support for both sides.
The consequences of this conflict will be long-lasting and should shake us all
Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefing by video link, said the United Nations has recorded 1,400 civilian deaths in the first half of this year, more than 1,100 of them caused by drone strikes. Fighting around El Obeid in North Kordofan has driven 15,000 families into the city since the middle of July. Humanitarian agencies reached nearly 11 million people by the middle of the year and are on course to reach 11.4 million with food, while remaining behind on health, shelter, water and education.
This Council is not powerless
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Sudan's objection is to the scope, not the enforcement
The representative of Sudan opposed any widening of the measures, arguing that it would put the national army and the Rapid Support Forces on the same footing and undermine Sudan's sovereignty. His position was that the existing measures should be kept, and enforced more strictly against those breaking them, rather than broadened.
This is not a technical modification, or just an adaptation to the developments
The representative of Sudan, addressing the Security Council
He told the Council his government has set up a national mechanism for civilian protection and is helping displaced people go home, putting voluntary returns at 5.8 million by the end of June, and said the humanitarian response plan is funded at only 38.9 per cent. Sudan's military chief, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who chairs the ruling sovereign council, said the same day that fresh sanctions would not stop the army's campaign, in remarks carried by the state news agency.
The two vetoes are both against it
Russia's representative opposed broadening either the sanctions or the embargo, arguing that further economic measures would fall hardest on ordinary people in Sudan, and rejecting what he treated as an attempt to place the two sides on the same moral level. China urged the Council to use sanctions prudently, said they should serve peace rather than become an end in themselves, and asked that any measure respect Sudan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Both hold a veto. France, which does not, supported extending the sanctions to all of Sudan.
None of the records read for this report gives a date for a vote.