LONDON: Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Youssef has expressed his disapproval, via a letter to UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, at his exclusion from a UK-hosted conference aimed at resolving the African country’s prolonged civil war.
The Rapid Support Forces, who are locked in a deadly struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces, have also been excluded from the conference.
Instead, the UK, along with conference co-hosts Germany and France, is bringing together foreign ministers from nearly 20 countries, and organizations, in an attempt to establish a group that can drive the warring factions in Sudan closer towards peace.
The conference at Lancaster House in London on April 15 comes on the second anniversary of the start of a civil war that has led to the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, but has been persistently left at the bottom of the global list of diplomatic priorities. Half of Sudan’s population are judged to be desperately short of food, with 11 million people internally displaced.
The initiative holds risks for Lammy, since it may require him to place pressure on some of the UK’s Middle Eastern allies to make good on their promises to no longer arm the warring parties.
A harsh spotlight is also very likely to fall in London on the impact of USAID cuts on the provision of humanitarian aid in Sudan as well as the withdrawal of funding by the US from academic groups that have been monitoring war crimes and the build-up of famine.
NGOs such as Human Rights Watch are also urging the ministerial conference to emphasize the importance of civilian protection, independent of a ceasefire.
At an event previewing the conference, Kate Ferguson, the co-director of the NGO Protection Approaches, said: “The conference comes at a critical moment for civilians in Sudan as areas of control under various armed forces rapidly evolve and civilians face an increasing spectrum of varied attack.”
She added: “A new vehicle is needed to take forward civilian protection. This is a moment here to create something new that is desperately needed — whether that is a coalition of conscience or a contact group.”
Ferguson added that “citizens were facing an unimaginable triple threat of armed conflict, identity-based atrocity crimes and humanitarian catastrophe.”
