The United States has announced $424m in new aid for displaced and starving Sudanese, with the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, saying all options for civilian protection must now be considered by the international community.
Describing the war in Sudan as horrific and shaming for the whole world, she said it was now necessary “to compel, insist and demand that the warring parties agree a humanitarian pause to allow aid to flow and for citizens to flee”.
She said in the vast Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur children were dying at a rate faster than one every two hours.
Thomas-Greenfield said: “Every day children are dying, starving and wasting. Everyone should feel a sense of shame and embarrassment that this is happening on our watch. This humanitarian catastrophe is a man-made one brought about by a senseless war. We cannot simply look away or give in to compassion collapse.”
Sudan has been plunged into a devastating war for more than a year after fighting broke out between the two main factions of the military regime.
On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, who remain broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Thomas-Greenfield said all parties had a responsibility, but said the RSF must immediately halt its deadly assault on the North Darfur capital of El Fasher.
“People in Sudan have endured 17 months of hell, and the suffering continues to grow,” said the UN’s top relief official, Joyce Msuya.
Her remarks, on the margins of the UN general assembly, skirted around the external forces that have been arming both warring sides – notably the supply of weapons alleged to have been given to the RSF by the United Arab Emirates.
The World Health Organization said this month at least 20,000 people had been killed in the conflict. But some estimates are far higher, with the US envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, saying that up to 150,000 people may have died.
Writing for the Guardian, the shadow foreign secretary, Andrew Mitchell, urged British ministers to “request that the UN security council receives regular briefings on the latest satellite imagery and analysis, because that is often where we can see most clearly the belligerents on the move”.
Mitchell, who has visited Sudan, said: “Our ministers must also communicate their expectations to the secretary general, António Guterres, that when he reports back to the security council on protection recommendations he supports the call for the deployment of an independent and impartial force with a mandate to protect civilians in Sudan.
“This protection of civilians report by the secretary general needs to be made public and then its recommendations must be both implemented and monitored by the security council.”
Pointing out that the UK is the lead pen holder on Sudan and the protection of civilians, he wrote that “the UK had a special responsibility to ensure this is done”.
Katy Crosby from the NGO Mercy Corps expressed deep disappointment that a two-hour UN meeting had skirted around many of the fundamental issues.
She said: “Many of the exact same expressions of concern and calls for more aid to be allowed into Sudan were expressed in almost the exact same room here in New York at a high-level meeting here a year ago.”
She said the proposal for civilian protection had the potential to be significant, but said “nowhere in Sudan is safe, and it is not clear how selected civilian protected areas would work, or the implications for the rest of the country”.
Pointing out that Sudan is classified as the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, she said it was “heartening that the US had stepped up with more funding, but it was deeply disappointing that other countries have not done more, or circled back to see if they had provided the funds they had promised”.
She added she could only hope Joe Biden had been more direct behind closed doors when he met with the leaders of the UAE this week.
