World pledges $2.1b aid for Sudan to ward off famine

KHARTOUM: World donors pledged more than $2.1 billion in humanitarian aid for Sudan ater a yearlong war that has pushed its population to the brink of famine, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday.

Macron spoke at the end of an international conference in Paris aimed at drumming up support for Sudan’s 51 million people. The aid will go to food, water, medicines and other urgent needs, he said, without providing a specific timeline.

Top diplomatic envoys, UN officials and aid agencies urged Sudan’s warring parties to stop attacks on civilians and allow access for humanitarian aid, and called for immediate international mediation efforts toward peace. Members of Sudan’s civil society took part in the Paris meeting, but neither the Sudanese army nor its rival paramilitary were represented.

Sudan descended into conflict in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the country.

“Much of the world has been focused on the crisis that was generated in the Middle East. As concerning as those developments are, other dramatic life-and-death emergencies are being pushed into the shadows,” United Nations Secretary-general António Guterres told reporters ater the Security Council met on Sudan on Monday.

“The world is forgeting about the people of Sudan,” he said.

The United Nations’ humanitarian campaign needs some $2.7 billion this year to get food, health care and other supplies to 24 million people in Sudan - nearly half its population. So far, funders have given only $145 million, about 5%, according to the U.N’S humanitarian office, known as OCHA.