An international conference opens this Monday in Paris on Sudan, a year after the start of the war, with the hope of reawakening mobilization on “a forgotten crisis” with catastrophic humanitarian consequences and major geopolitical risks. The meeting, co-chaired in particular by Germany, will combine a political component in the morning, at ministerial level, to try to find ways out of the conflict, a humanitarian component to mobilize donations and massively bring aid into this country. devastated region of the Horn of Africa, as well as a meeting of around forty members of Sudanese civil society.
“The idea is to bring the crisis to the top of the agenda,” said Christophe Lemoine, deputy spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We must not let Sudan become a forgotten crisis.” “International attention is more on Gaza and Ukraine than on Sudan,” insisted the Quai d’Orsay, referring to a “humanitarian but also geopolitical” crisis. The risk of the breakup of Sudan and the destabilization of the entire Horn is absolutely major.”
Famine
The war in Sudan broke out on April 15, 2023 between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and those of Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, his former deputy and commander of the rapid support paramilitary forces. The conflict has left thousands dead and caused a humanitarian catastrophe. More than 3.4 million people are in “urgent” need of a humanitarian response in Chad, according to Action Against Hunger (ACF), a consequence of the massive influx of refugees fleeing the war in Sudan.
“Civilians are suffering from starvation, mass sexual violence, large-scale ethnic massacres and executions. (…) Yet the world continues to look elsewhere,” despairs Will Carter, the director in Sudan of the Norwegian Refugee Council. The war has forced around 1.8 million people to leave the country and displaced at least 6.7 million internally. While 25 million people, or half of the country’s population, need aid, Jean Stowell, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders in Sudan, denounces “an extremely worrying humanitarian void”.
A closed meeting
“In addition to deaths linked to violence, we see children dying from malnutrition and lack of vaccines, women suffering complications after dangerous births,” he said in a statement. “Last year the UN humanitarian appeal was only half funded. This year, only 5% were financed, out of the 3.8 billion euros requested, points out the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We do not claim to reach them in Paris but we are hopeful that the international community will wake up.”
The political meeting, behind closed doors, will notably bring together ministers from Sudan’s neighbors (Chad, Libya, Kenya, Djibouti, South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia), the Gulf (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia) and Western powers (States -United States, Great Britain, Norway). Regional organizations such as the African Union, the Arab League and Igad, the bloc of East African countries, will also be present alongside UN agencies. The project is “to adopt a declaration of principles and to take stock of the various peace initiatives”, specified the Quai d’Orsay. At the same time, around forty actors from Sudanese civil society will gather at the Arab World Institute, in the French capital.