Donors pledge $2.1b
People of Sudan face starvation as civil war goes on
On a clear night a year ago, a dozen heavily armed fighters broke into Omaima Farouq’s house in an upscale neighborhood in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. At gunpoint, they whipped and slapped the woman, and terrorised her children. Then they expelled them from the fenced two-story house.
“Since then, our life has been ruined,” said the 45-year-old schoolteacher. “Everything has changed in this year.”
Farouq, who is a widow, and her four children now live in a small village outside the central city of Wad Madani, 136km southeast of Khartoum. They depend on aid from villagers and philanthropists since international aid groups can’t reach the village.
Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, ever since simmering tensions between its military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into street clashes in the capital Khartoum in mid-April 2023. The fighting rapidly spread across the country.
The conflict has been overshadowed by the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza Strip, which since October has caused a massive humanitarian crisis for Palestinians and a threat of famine in the territory.
But relief workers warn Sudan is hurtling towards an even larger-scale calamity of starvation, with potential mass death in coming months. Food production and distribution networks have broken down and aid agencies are unable to reach the worst-stricken regions. At the same time, the conflict has brought widespread reports of atrocities including killings, displacement and rape, particularly in the area of the capital and the western region of Darfur.
Justin Brady, head of the UN humanitarian co-ordination office for Sudan, warned that potentially tens or even hundreds of thousands could die in coming months from malnutrition-related causes.
Finally this week world donors pledged more than US$2.1 billion ($3.57b) in humanitarian aid.
French President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement 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 Antonio Guterres told reporters after the Security Council met on Sudan on Tuesday.
“The world is forgetting about the people of Sudan,” he said.
The United Nations’ humanitarian campaign needs some US$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 US$145 million, about 5 per cent, according to the UNs humanitarian office, known as OCHA.
After Tuesday’s conference, Macron said: “We are today at €2 billion ($3.6b) for Sudan.”
Of that, some €900m comes from EU countries, he said.
Tuesday’s conference among 58 countries also called on regional powers to stop funding Sudan’s war. Without naming them, Macron said, ”The amount we raised today remains probably less than all the money raised by several powers” to wage a proxy conflict in Sudan.
More than 14,000 people have been killed and at least 33,000 have been wounded in the yearlong war. Nearly 9 million people have been forced to flee their homes either to safer areas inside Sudan or to neighbouring countries, according to the UN Hunger, sexual violence against women and girls and continued displacement are rampant and much of the country’s infrastructure — homes, hospitals and schools — has been reduced to rubble.
“We cannot let this nightmare slide from view,” Guterres said.
“It’s time to support the Sudanese people. It’s time to silence the guns,” he added.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said the aim of the conference was to mobilise humanitarian funding to help Sudanese people, who have been victims of both a “terrible war” and “international indifference”.
The European Union’s crisis management commissioner, Janez Lenarcic, said the 27-member bloc wants to ensure that Sudan is not forgotten as wars in Gaza and Ukraine dominate the international news.
“People of Sudan, caught up in this emergency, are almost completely invisible,” Lenarcic said. Sudan has turned into one of the worst humanitarian disasters ever on the African continent, he said, and added: “It is our duty not to look away.”
The conflict has also been marked by widespread reports of atrocities including killings, displacement and rape, particularly in the area of the capital and the western region of Darfur. At least 37 per cent of the population at crisis level or above suffer from hunger, according to OCHA.