A senior United Nations official has called Wednesday for a negotiated solution to the conflict in Sudan, saying there is no alternative. Meanwhile, UN agencies warn health conditions are deteriorating in Sudan and neighboring countries as growing numbers of people flee escalating fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, Martha Pobee, briefed the UN Security Council on the situation in Sudan. She said that the conflict continues to have immense repercussions on the country and its people and emphasized that now is the time to end this senseless war and return to negotiations.
"Calls by some to continue the war in order to achieve a military victory will only contribute to destroying the country," Pobee told the Security Council.
"The longer this war continues, the greater the risk of fragmentation, and foreign interference, and erosion of sovereignty, and the loss of Sudan's future, particularly its youth."
Pobee expressed particular concern about the ethnic nature of fighting in the Darfur region, especially West Darfur, which has seen brutal ethnically-based violence.
"This is deeply worrying and could quickly engulf the country in a prolonged ethnic conflict with regional spillover," she warned.
Darfur saw wide-scale ethnic violence and crimes against humanity in the early 2000s. The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into the situation in 2005 and charged then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with genocide. He remains beyond the court's custody despite having been ousted from power in a military coup in April 2019.
Pobee said Khartoum State remains the epicenter of the current conflict, with fighting concentrated around key Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) installations, including its headquarters. Other areas of concern include the Kordofan and Blue Nile States.
The United Nations says 24 million people in Sudan are in need of humanitarian assistance. It aims to reach about 18 million. So far, aid agencies have provided some form of humanitarian help to nearly 3 million people since fighting broke out between rival military factions in mid-April.
80 percent of hospitals across the country are not functioning, and 14 million children in Sudan – half of all children in the country - need humanitarian support.
More than 4 million people have now fled the fighting inside Sudan or across the country’s borders, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). That’s more than 4 million people in less than four months. In the past week alone, more than 261,000 people were displaced by the conflict.
Briefing the Council as well was Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). She said that the situation is particularly alarming in Khartoum, as well as Darfur and Kordofan regions.
"Humanitarian organizations are ready and willing to do everything it takes to provide the assistance that the people of Sudan so desperately need," Wosornu said. "But they cannot do so without the regular facilitation of access by the parties, and the easing of bureaucratic and administrative impediments."
Wosornu, who traveled to Sudan two weeks ago, said the limited aid deliveries are the product of intensive and complex negotiations with the parties.
"Everyone had a story of parents, children, colleagues and friends who had perished in this devastating conflict, with fears of more to come as the conflicting parties push on regardless of the consequences," she said.
She called for better aid access, noting that the UN has been unable to guarantee safe passage for a humanitarian convoy to Khartoum to replenish supplies since late June. The first delivery of food aid to West Darfur was only last week; it entered through Chad.
On Wednesday, the Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, called on parties to the conflict to ensure safe passage for civilians fleeing the fighting. In a separate statement, she warned that many people trapped by the violence have been unable – and in some cases actively prevented – from seeking safety elsewhere, exposing them to abuse, theft and harassment.
Originally, the Security Council expected to be briefed by the head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes. But in late May, the Sudanese government declared him persona non grata while he was outside the country.
Sudan's ambassador told reporters it was because of statements Perthes made on news channel Al Jazeera about the government's inability to maintain the country's unity and its having lost trust with regional countries. Perthes continues to lead the mission, known as UNITAMS, but he has been based elsewhere in the region.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters that Khartoum threatened to end the UN mission in Sudan if Perthes participated in Wednesday's meeting.
"And that was really outrageous, and I did make that point in the Council," she said. "No country should be able to bully a briefer into silence, let alone the United Nations."
Sudan's ambassador disputed the accusation, saying his government did not bully anyone.
"When you continuously say that this state has told you they lost confidence in a specific person and he cannot be an honest broker for mediation in Sudan, where all possible success and elements of it were available, but the end was full war again," Ambassador Al-Harith Mohamed said while explaining his government's rationale.
Mohamed added that Sudan is still positively engaging with the UN and is glad it is staying in the country.
Meanwhile, UN agencies warned on Tuesday that health conditions are deteriorating in Sudan and neighboring countries as growing numbers of people flee escalating fighting between the SAF and the RSF.
Before the conflict erupted on April 15, 4.5 million Sudanese already were displaced — more than 3.7 million inside Sudan and another 800,000 as refugees in Chad, South Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia. Since the rival generals went to war, the UN refugee agency says nearly an equal number - more than four million people - have become newly displaced.
“The situation inside Sudan, where UNHCR teams are present, is untenable as needs far outweigh what is humanly possible to deliver with available resources,” said William Spindler, UNHCR spokesman.
He said a lack of medicine and a shortage of staff to care for the sick and wounded in White Nile State severely hampered health and nutrition services in all 10 refugee camps, “where over 144,000 newly displaced refugees from Khartoum have arrived since the conflict started.”
Spindler said many families that have been on the move for weeks, with very little food and medicine, were arriving at border entry points and transit centers in neighboring countries in desperate condition. As a result, he said malnutrition rates have been rising, as have disease outbreaks and related deaths.
“Between 15 May and 17 July, over 300 deaths, mainly among children under five years, were reported due to measles and malnutrition,” he said. “In addition, severe cholera and malaria cases are expected in the coming months due to flooding from the continuing rains and inadequate sanitation facilities.”
Now in its fourth month of conflict, the World Health Organization says insecurity, as well as limited access to medicine, medical supplies, electricity and water pose a challenge to the delivery of health care.
WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Tuesday attacks on health facilities were increasing, preventing the sick and wounded from accessing medical treatment. He said the WHO has verified 53 attacks on health care, causing 11 deaths and 38 injuries, between April 15 and July 31.
“Attacks on health care are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and the right to health. They must stop. Humanitarian workers need assurances of safety and security in order to continue delivering critical humanitarian and health response,” he said.
Meanwhile, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns Sudan is facing a deepening food crisis, noting that “20.3 million individuals in Sudan face severe hunger, a figure that has nearly doubled since last year.”
Maximo Torero, FAO chief economist, said a recent UN food assessment shows “the level of acute food insecurity in Sudan has increased substantially to more than 11 million people because of the conflict. So, the situation is deteriorating.”
In a bit of welcome news, OCHA confirmed Tuesday that the first humanitarian convoy since the start of the conflict had arrived in the East Darfur state after nine days on the road and that “those supplies have been distributed to more than 15,000 people in remote villages in the state.”
Additionally, the UN office said that the FAO had provided 430 tons of agricultural seeds “to be distributed to farmers across the state by the Ministry of Agriculture.”
UN agencies agree that the competing generals’ power grab has deepened Sudan’s humanitarian crisis. They warn the lives of many people are hanging by a thread, lives that will be lost without more donor support.
A severe shortage of funding compromises relief efforts. Of the $2.6 billion the United Nations has requested from donors for the Sudan humanitarian response plan, only about $625 million has been received (24.4 percent coverage). Of the $566 million needed for the regional refugee assistance plan, only 29 percent has been raised.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: Continued Military Hostilities, Sexual Violence, Attacks against Citizens Pushing Sudan into ‘Catastrophic’ Humanitarian Crisis, Speakers Warn Security Council, UN Security Council, press release, published August 9, 2023
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15381.doc.htm
Full text: Press Briefing by the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, August 8, 2023
https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/bi-weekly-briefing/2023/08/press-briefing-united-nations-information-service-0