Good morning. Against the backdrop of continued international indifference, a conference on Sudan’s devastating civil war in London yesterday might be counted as progress of a kind: it brought 17 countries, as well as the EU and African Union, together, was accompanied by some new pledges of aid, and was billed as an effort to build a new consensus on a way forward.
But with neither of the nation’s warring parties present – and some of the attendees believed to be covertly fuelling the conflict – there were good reasons for scepticism. The talks broke up without a joint communique on what should happen next or a new contact group to facilitate ceasefire talks, a major diplomatic setback. Meanwhile, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, accused of genocide, declared the establishment of a rival administration to that run by the country’s armed forces, with a bitterly ironic name: “the government of peace and unity”.
