AMID reports of “staggering” sexual violence, famine, cholera, and massacres in Sudan, the UK Government’s doubling of aid in response to the crisis has been welcomed by the Roman Catholic agency CAFOD.
A total of £113 million has been allocated to help more than 600,000 people in Sudan, and 700,000 in neighbouring countries (who now total almost three million), the UK Government announced on Sunday, warning that the country faced “the worst humanitarian crisis of the decade”.
The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, which erupted in April last year, has produced the world’s worst displacement crisis: more than 11 million people have been driven from their homes. In August, famine was recorded in Zamzam camp, in Darfur, the first determination of famine by the Famine Review Committee in more than seven years.
CAFOD’s Africa regional head, Dr Kayode Akintola, welcomed the funding and expressed hope that more donor governments would match it. “We also hope the UK will ensure these funds get to Sudanese community groups, such as the emergency response rooms and frontline responders, working in the worst affected parts of country that international agencies cannot reach,” he said.
“People’s lives are being lost in Sudan not just from military attacks, but also from the devastating impact of overwhelmed hospitals and the lack of essential resources. Cholera has spread rapidly, killing many because there are insufficient funds to ensure access to safe water and food for those displaced by the fighting.
“In addition to these dire conditions, civilians are also dying from hunger and starvation. With crops destroyed, supply chains broken, and humanitarian aid struggling to reach those in need, the ongoing conflict has exacerbated an already dire situation.”
CAFOD has described Sudan as “the largest and most neglected humanitarian crisis of our time”. The UN reports that the £2-billion Sudan humanitarian appeal is only 57 per cent funded.
Earlier this month, the UNHCR director of external relations, Dominique Hyde, reported on a visit to refugees in one of the world’s poorest countries, Chad, a “sanctuary” for more than 700,000 Sudanese refugees. “I spoke to people who watched while their families were murdered,” she said.
“People are targeted on the basis of their ethnicity. Men and boys are killed, and their bodies are burned. Women are raped while fleeing. People told me over and over again how they remember the bodies they saw abandoned by the road as they were fleeing.”
Of 180 people who had fled the Darfur city of El Geneina towards Chad, all but 17 had been massacred, she said, recounting the testimony of one young woman who had escaped. “Of the 17 that survived, all of the women were raped. . . Six of the women who survived the rape committed suicide.”
Mohamed Chande Othman, who chairs the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, has described the scale of sexual violence as “staggering”.
Chad had been “more than generous”, Ms Hyde said. “I heard over and over again that they felt one with the Sudanese community. But we need that support. We need support now.” The world was “not paying any attention”, she said.
On Monday, Russia vetoed a draft UK-backed UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Sudan. The draft demanded that the RSF immediately halt its attacks against civilians, and that both sides honour commitments to protect civilians. The Sudanese representative said that the Security Council was “hesitant to name the aggressors”, and warned of foreign support for militia who were perpetrating a “deliberate genocide”. The UAE and others should be prevented from sending arms, he said.
Last week, the UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, told the Security Council that both parties were receiving “considerable” external support, including arms. “To put it bluntly, certain purported allies of the parties are enabling the slaughter in Sudan,” she said. “This is unconscionable, it is illegal, and it must end.”