A senior United Nations official for Africa called Wednesday for a negotiated solution to the conflict in Sudan, saying there is no alternative.

"Calls by some to continue the war in order to achieve a military victory will only contribute to destroying the country," U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, Martha Pobee, told the U.N. Security Council. "The longer this war continues, the greater the risk of fragmentation, and foreign interference, and erosion of sovereignty, and the loss of Sudan's future, particularly its youth."

Pobee expressed particular concern about the ethnic nature of fighting in the Darfur region, especially West Darfur, which has seen brutal ethnically-based violence.

"This is deeply worrying and could quickly engulf the country in a prolonged ethnic conflict with regional spillover," she warned.

Darfur saw wide-scale ethnic violence and crimes against humanity in the early 2000s. The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into the situation in 2005 and charged then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with genocide. He remains beyond the court's custody despite having been ousted from power in a military coup in April 2019.

Pobee said Khartoum State remains the epicenter of the current conflict, with fighting concentrated around key Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) installations, including its headquarters. Other areas of concern include the Kordofan and Blue Nile States.

Staggering humanitarian needs

The United Nations says 24 million people in Sudan are in need of humanitarian assistance. It aims to reach about 18 million. So far, aid agencies have provided some form of humanitarian help to nearly 3 million people since fighting broke out between rival military factions in mid-April.

"Humanitarian organizations are ready and willing to do everything it takes to provide the assistance that the people of Sudan so desperately need," said Edem Wosornu, director of the Operations and Advocacy Division in the U.N. Office of Humanitarian Affairs. "But they cannot do so without the regular facilitation of access by the parties, and the easing of bureaucratic and administrative impediments."

She said the limited aid deliveries are the product of intensive and complex negotiations with the parties.

Diplomatic drama

Originally, the Security Council expected to be briefed by the head of the U.N. mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes. But in late May, the Sudanese government declared him persona non grata while he was outside the country. Sudan's ambassador told reporters it was because of statements Perthes made on news channel Al Jazeera about the government's inability to maintain the country's unity and its having lost trust with regional countries.

Perthes continues to lead the mission, known as UNITAMS, but he has been based elsewhere in the region.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters that Khartoum threatened to end the U.N. mission in Sudan if Perthes participated in Wednesday's meeting.

"And that was really outrageous, and I did make that point in the Council," she said. "No country should be able to bully a briefer into silence, let alone the United Nations."

Sudan's ambassador disputed the accusation, saying his government did not bully anyone.

"When you continuously say that this state has told you they lost confidence in a specific person and he cannot be an honest broker for mediation in Sudan, where all possible success and elements of it were available, but the end was full war again," Ambassador Al-Harith Mohamed said while explaining his government's rationale.

Mohamed added that Sudan is still positively engaging with the U.N. and is glad it is staying in the country.