UN warns violence in Sudan 'verging on pure evil'

FILE PHOTO: Clementine Nkweta-Salami, then the U.N.'s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) director for East Africa, Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes speaks during an interview with Reuters in Nairobi, Kenya, June 16, 2020. Picture taken June 16, 2020. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Violence against civilians in Sudan is "verging on pure evil," a senior United Nations official warned on Friday, as a humanitarian crisis in the country worsens and ethnic violence escalates in the western region of Darfur.

A war erupted on April 15 between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after weeks of rising tension between the two sides over a plan to integrate forces as part of a transition from military rule to civilian democracy.