Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to press the United Nations Security Council to extend the International Criminal Court mandate from Darfur to cover the whole of Sudan; and, if not, why not.

The UK strongly supports the International Criminal Court's (ICC) active investigation into the situation in Darfur, including allegations of crimes committed since April 2023. We welcomed Prosecutor Khan's announcement in July 2023 that the current conflict was in scope of the existing ICC referral and subject to their investigations. Our assessment is that a new ICC referral beyond Darfur would not have the required support from members of the UN Security Council. It would not advance the cause of accountability in Sudan for an ICC referral to fail to win Security Council support or to be vetoed. The UK continues to support the work of the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) to gather open-source evidence on the ongoing fighting, with a view to supporting future accountability efforts. In November, the UN Security Council sanctioned two senior Rapid Support Forces Commanders for involvement in human rights abuses.