United Nations, Feb 15: India is a “very successful” emerging economy with a bigger influence in global affairs, and is the “right place” to host the AI summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.

In an exclusive interview with PTI at the UN Headquarters ahead of the India–AI Impact Summit 2026, Guterres underscored that Artificial Intelligence should benefit the entire world and not just be a privilege reserved for developed nations or two superpowers.

“I strongly congratulate India for organising this Summit. It’s absolutely essential that AI develops itself to the benefit of everybody, everywhere and that countries in the Global South are part of the benefits of AI,” he said.

The high-powered event being held from February 16 to 20 will be the first-ever AI summit hosted in the Global South and is anchored in the three guiding principles of ‘People, Planet and Progress’.

Guterres, who will be travelling to India to attend the Summit, asserted “it would be totally unacceptable that AI would be just a privilege of the most developed countries or a division only between two superpowers”, an apparent reference to the US and China.

“It is absolutely essential that AI becomes a universal instrument for the benefit of humankind,” Guterres said.

“The role of India, (which) is today a very successful emerging economy that is having a bigger and bigger role in not only the global economy but in its influence in global affairs, India is the right place to have this Summit and to make sure that AI (is) being discussed in depth, in all its enormous potential and also in all its risks, but that AI belongs to the whole world and not only to a few,” he said.

From world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to technology honchos, including Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, the Summit is bringing together leaders, policymakers and innovators from across the world for deep-dive discussions on the way forward for AI.

Guterres had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi late last year on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Johannesburg and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar when he was in New York.

Underlining his strong advocacy for multipolarity, Guterres highlighted India’s contribution in a multipolar world, saying he looks forward to discussing this with the Indian leadership during his visit to New Delhi.

“There are two things we need to avoid in the world. We need to avoid the system in which there is total hegemony by only one power or a system in which the world is divided between two superpowers,” he said.

Guterres added that he is a “very strong advocate” of the need for true multipolarity in the world.

For true multipolarity, it is important for emerging economies to have a “higher and higher” role and to establish a “stronger and stronger” network of trade, technological and international cooperation relations.

In this regard, he said the recent trade agreement between India and the European Union is a “good example”. “India is one of the most relevant emerging economies,” he said.

“We are seeing across the world, more and more, the creation of a network of, I would say, all developed countries but also, and very importantly, emerging economies creating a true multipolarity without any hegemony, and allowing, then, multilateral organisations to be effective,” he said.

Emphasising the importance of multipolarity, Guterres spoke about his “frustration” over the failure of the UN Security Council to address conflicts and maintain international peace and security.

“When one looks at the UN, you can imagine my frustration when I see the Security Council unable to take decisions, and it is clear that we need a fundamental reform of the Security Council, first of all, to represent the world as it is today and not after the Second World War. And second, to be able to take effective decisions for peace and security around the world,” he said.

Guterres added that for a “fair” multilateral system, both in the UN and international financial institutions, emerging economies need to have a stronger voice and be at the centre of this networking.

“I see India in the centre of those emerging economies, and this is something I would be delighted to discuss with Prime Minister Modi because I have a lot of hope for the role that India can play in shaping this multipolar world,” he said.

At the Summit, Guterres will be joined by senior UN leaders, including UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk and Under-Secretary-General and UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology Amandeep Singh Gill.

Guterres further underlined that “it is always fantastic” to go to India, “a democracy with an enormous diversity and extraordinary civilisation and culture.”

The UN chief elaborated that he is currently reading about how India, for centuries, has been the main factor of transformation of the world, “starting hundreds of years before Christ and going on for centuries, with an enormous influence of Indian culture, of Indian civilisation that we can see in China, Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean.”

“Even in the time of the Roman Empire, there were very strong connections with India and a very important influence of Indian culture in what is today the Mediterranean area.

“So it is always an enormous pleasure to visit India,” Guterres said.

Cairo, Feb 15: More than 6,000 people were killed in over three days when a Sudanese paramilitary group unleashed “a wave of intense violence … shocking in its scale and brutality” in Sudan’s Darfur region in late October, according to the United Nations.

The Rapid Support Forces’ offensive to capture the city of el-Fasher included widespread atrocities that amount to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, the UN Human Rights Office said in a report released on Friday.

“The wanton violations that were perpetrated by the RSF and allied Arab militia in the final offensive on el-Fasher underscore that persistent impunity fuels continued cycles of violence,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

The RSF and their allied Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, overran el-Fasher, the Sudanese army’s only remaining stronghold in Darfur, on Oct. 26 and rampaged through the city and its surroundings after more than 18 months of siege.

The 29-page UN report detailed a set of atrocities that ranged from mass killings and summary executions, sexual violence, abductions for ransom, torture and ill-treatment to detention and disappearances. In many cases, the attacks were ethnicity-motivated, it said.

The RSF did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

The paramilitaries’ Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo has previously acknowledged abuses by his fighters, but disputed the scale of atrocities.

‘Like a scene out of a horror movie’

The alleged atrocities in el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur, mirror a pattern of RSF conduct in its war against the Sudanese miliary. The war began in April 2023 when a power struggle between the two sides exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere across the country.

The conflict created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with parts of the country pushed into famine. It has also been marked by heinous atrocities which the International Criminal Court said it was investigating as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The RSF was also accused by the Biden administration of carrying out genocide in the ongoing war.

The UN Human Rights Office said it documented the killing of at least 4,400 people inside el-Fasher between Oct. 25 and Oct. 27, while more than 1,600 others were killed as they were trying to flee the RSF rampage. The report said it drew its toll from interviews with 140 victims and witnesses which were “are consistent with independent analysis of contemporaneous satellite imagery and video footage.”

In one case, RSF fighters opened fire from heavy weapons on a crowd of 1,000 people sheltering in the Rashid dormitory in el-Fasher university on Oct. 26, killing around 500 people, the report said. One witness was quoted as saying that he saw bodies thrown into the air, “like a scene out of a horror movie,” according to the report.

In another case, around 600 people, including 50 children, were executed on Oct. 26 while taking shelter in the university facilities, the report said.

The report, however, warned that the actual scale of the death toll of the week-long offensive in el-Fasher was “undoubtedly significantly higher.”

The toll does not include at least 460 people who were killed by the RSF on Oct. 28 when they stormed the Saudi Maternity hospital, according to the World Health Organization.

Around 300 people were also killed in RSF shelling and drone attacks between Oct. 23 and Oct. 24 in the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people, 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) northwest of el-Fasher, the U.N. Human Rights Office’ report said.

Woman and girls sexually assaulted

Sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, was apparently widespread during el-Fasher offensive, with RSF fighters and their allied militias targeting women and girls from the African Zaghawa non-Arab tribes over allegations of having links or supporting the miliary, the report said.

Türk, who visited Sudan last month, said survivors of sexual violence recounted testimonies that showed how the practice “was systematically used as a weapon of war.”

The paramilitaries also abducted many people while attempting to flee the city, before releasing them after paying ramson. Thousands have been held in at least 10 detention centers — including the city’s Children Hospital which was turned into a detention facility — run by the RSF in el-Fasher, the report said.

The UN Human Rights Office also said it documented 10 detention facilities used by the paramilitaries in el-Fasher, including the Children’s Hospital which was turned into a detention center. Several thousands of people remain missing and unaccounted for, the report said.

The pattern of the RSF offensive on el-Fasher was a mirror of other attacks by the paramilitaries and their allies on the Zamzam camp for displaced people, 15 kilometres south of the city, and on West Darfur’s city of Geneina and the nearby town of Ardamata in 2023, the UN Human Rights Office said.

Türk said there were “reasonable grounds” that RSF and their allied Arab militias committed war crimes, and that their acts also amount to crimes against humanity.

He called for holding those responsible — including commanders — accountable, warning that “persistent impunity fuels continued cycles of violence.”