UK Leadership on Sudan

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Thursday 28 November.

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a Statement about the UK’s focus on Sudan during the UK’s presidency of the UN Security Council this month and about the humanitarian emergency in Sudan.

Eighteen months into this devastating conflict, the war that began as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. Nearly 25 million people—half of Sudan’s population—are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Sudan’s neighbours are also struggling under the strain of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The UK is using every lever, including through our role on the UN Security Council, to convene the international community to alleviate suffering, pursue peace and hold those responsible for atrocities to account.

On 12 November, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, chaired an open meeting of the Security Council, calling for urgent measures to protect civilians. On Monday last week, the Foreign Secretary brought together partners in New York to agree on collective action to pressure the warring parties, remove barriers to humanitarian operations and ensure aid reaches those in desperate need. In partnership with Sierra Leone, the UK introduced a Security Council resolution that called for protection of civilians and full, unimpeded aid access. I am appalled that one country chose to block that vital resolution.

Russia’s veto is a disgrace, but let me be clear: Russia’s actions will not deter us. We will continue to use our role as UN Security Council penholder on Sudan to drive forward action to safeguard civilians and deliver life-saving aid. The decision to keep the Adre border crossing open for three more months is welcome, but that must become permanent and it must be free of deliberate bureaucratic obstacles imposed by the SAF that are costing lives. The RSF must also heed international humanitarian law; indeed, all warring parties have no excuse but to do so.

Without urgent support, even more Sudanese people will die, not only from bombs and bullets but from starvation, preventable illness and exposure. I met some of those who had fled from Sudan to South Sudan. What they told me about wading through flood-water for hours, children dying from diarrhoea in the rain and their desperation to find food will never leave me. That is why the UK is doubling its aid this year, providing an additional £113 million to support people in Sudan and those who have fled to neighbouring countries that are so generously hosting large numbers of displaced people. The funding will allow our partners to deliver food, water, shelter and healthcare where it is needed most. As part of that uplift, we are also providing £10 million to Education Cannot Wait, giving 200,000 vulnerable children in refugee and host communities a safe space to learn and support for their mental health as they endure this traumatic crisis.

The people of Sudan face a humanitarian emergency of horrifying proportions. Under our presidency of the Security Council, the UK is rallying international action. We are steadfast in our commitment to the Sudanese people to secure humanitarian access, pursue peace and deliver hope for a more stable and prosperous future. This Government will continue to do everything in our power, with our partners, to bring this devastating conflict to an end. I commend this Statement to the House”.

19:24:00

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s Statement. As I am sure many noble Lords are aware, Sudan is a terrible humanitarian catastrophe that gets far too little media attention, given all the other wars going on in the world at the moment. It has resulted in the world’s worst hunger and displacement crisis, with 25 million people in urgent need of assistance. There are ongoing reports of sexual violence, torture and mass civilian casualties. Against that background, I welcome the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, as the Prime Minister’s special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict, following the excellent work done by my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon in this role. The noble Lord is certainly going to have his work cut out in Sudan. As Wendy Morton, the MP for Aldridge-Brownhills, said in the other place: “The situation in Sudan is unconscionable. Red lines are being crossed in the prosecution of this conflict that countries such as the UK—the penholder on Sudan at the UN Security Council—cannot allow to stand. It is also firmly in the region’s interest for the conflict to come to an end and the humanitarian crisis to be addressed. Further destabilisation in the region caused by this conflict must be avoided”.”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/11/24; col. 943.] The previous Government invested heavily in aid to Sudan. I would be grateful if the Minister outlined what steps he is taking to continue that work. We understand that further aid measures have been announced, but could the noble Lord provide more information on how he envisages that aid reaching Sudan? The Minister will no doubt be fully seized of the massive problem of actually getting aid into Sudan in the first place, never mind the challenges of distribution across that vast nation. I am sure the Minister would agree that the UK has a key leadership role to play in Sudan. We wish him all the best, and I am sure that he will wish to use that role to its fullest possible extent.

My Lords, I declare an interest, as I have done on previous occasions: I have made previous visits to Sudan, and I continue to support civilians in making the case that a future Sudan should be a civilian-led, rather than a military-led country. I know the Minister is supportive of that aim, and I thank him for the Statement and for the update to Parliament. He and colleagues have honoured a commitment to do that, and that is welcome. I also welcome, as referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, the additional humanitarian support package. In particular, I welcome the more than £10 million of additional support for children, especially for education provision. This has been one of the most pernicious elements of the conflict in Sudan: according to UNICEF, up to 17 million children are not being schooled. It is estimated that UK aid will provide vital education facilities for 200,000 children, many of whom are displaced. Can the Minister say how we can ramp up support among other donors, so that they too focus on this issue and the conflict does not have the terrible consequence of millions of children being permanently uneducated and unschooled? The UK’s leadership on this would be extremely welcome. I also thank His Majesty’s Government and the Minister himself with regard to working with others, especially African nations, on putting forward a draft Security Council resolution. I noted that it was with Sierra Leone; unfortunately, the A3 Plus members of the African community on the Security Council were unable to reach consensus among themselves, but I thank the UK for taking the initiative. I hope the Minister might say a little as to why the A3 Plus group was not able to have consensus, which caused me great sadness. However, as the Statement from Minister Dodds said, ultimately the work was met by a Russian veto. I read the entire remarks of the Russian representative in the Security Council, made with utter brazen hypocrisy laced with cynicism, as he sought to say that that was an argument. While the warped views of the Russian Government might suit their own venal foreign policy, the real victims of the veto are the Sudanese civilians in desperate need of protective measures now and the reassurance that there is no impunity for the illegal and horrific crimes being inflicted on them by SAF and the RSF. The veto is a reality, though, and therefore what is the view of His Majesty’s Government on the measures that we can take alone and with a coalition of the willing for the protection of civilians in Sudan? How will we now take forward support for the ICC in ensuring that there is no impunity for those inflicting both war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the growing evidence of clear ethnic cleansing and the genocide now apparent again within Darfur, as the new head of OCHA Tom Fletcher will be seeing personally? I welcome his position as the head of OCHA. The UK leadership continues in that immensely important role, and I wish him well. I was very glad that he was in Darfur and the BBC was with him. This draws the attention of the United Nations and hopefully also of the British public with Lyse Doucet’s reporting. Russia has refused any calls to enforce an arms embargo. It rejected the need to have humanitarian aid access. What can His Majesty’s Government do with regard to a potentially wider suite of sanctions and the option of secondary sanctions—I suspect the Minister will say that he keeps this continuously under review—on those who are failing to cease the supply of arms, now including drones, to the belligerents that are being used so venally on civilians? In these areas and others, the UK has acted—for example, on the prescription of the Wagner Group—on a cross-party consensus. There is more that can be done on the gold trade and other areas with regard to the supply of funds to the belligerents. Finally, it is depressing news that I received this week that, possibly within days, the RSF may also declare that they are the Government of Sudan and effectively we could have a “Libyafication” of the country. Both sides, I am certain, will be seeking to have as much advantage as possible before President-elect Trump takes office in January next year. If there is to be a division of the country, one thing will be guaranteed, and that is that civilians will still be set aside and the humanitarian priorities will become secondary to the continuing military advantage of territory. Therefore, I hope the Minister can agree that only a civilian Government can guarantee one Sudan and the integrity of the country. I hope that there will be others in the humanitarian community now taking UNICEF and the IRC’s lead in calling for public appeals of humanitarian support. The Minister has heard me, in this Chamber and separately, call for the Disasters Emergency Committee to open up a public appeal, and I hope that if there is a public appeal then the Government will match that funding. Having more publicity will address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, that this is an ignored war, and I hope the Government stand ready for continued support.

My Lords, I welcome the comments of both Front Benches on the Statement. What we face, as they have quite rightly said, is a huge humanitarian crisis which, sadly, does not attract the attention of the world that it deserves. I, too, like the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, was incredibly moved to hear the report on Radio 4 this morning from Tom Fletcher, who had got into Port Sudan and was able, with a BBC team, to report on the circumstances—not only to report on what he saw but to amplify the voices of the victims and the survivors of this terrible situation—so I certainly congratulate him. As the noble Lords have quite rightly pointed out, we have used all diplomatic efforts as penholder, particularly at the United Nations, to bring about a ceasefire to ensure humanitarian access and the protection of civilians. That priority was reflected, as both noble Lords said, in terms of our UN Security Council resolution where we have used the presidency of the Security Council. The Foreign Secretary not only announced a doubling of aid in response to the conflict but led that resolution to ensure the protection of civilians, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, was so cynically vetoed by the Russians. Despite that veto, we are not giving up on these efforts. Both warring parties made commitments at Jeddah to limit the conflict’s impact on civilians, yet we know from reports that widespread violence continues. We will continue to push for the United Nations Secretary-General’s recommendations on the protection of civilians, including compliance mechanisms, to ensure that the warring parties stick to the commitments they made at Jeddah and there are tangible results on the ground. As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, knows, we are absolutely committed to a civilian Government. We want to ensure a future for Sudan under proper civilian rule. That is why I have met regularly with the former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, whom I know the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, knows well, and we have given absolute support to the pro-democracy Taqaddum coalition and we will continue to do that. We have to see a future without the military activity that we see the consequences of. The uplift that the Foreign Secretary announced is a further £113 million aid package, doubling our aid in response to the conflict to £226 million. This will support over a million people affected by violence. We are ensuring that we have a big impact on the ground, and we are also providing just under £70 million for neighbouring countries impacted by that violence, including Chad, as the noble Lord knows, South Sudan and Uganda. The Foreign Secretary chaired a Sudan session during the G7 with the Arab Quintet Foreign Ministers on 25 November to ensure that we can have collective action to improve humanitarian access but ensure greater financial support, and we are going to continue to do that. The noble Lord mentioned the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. We will do all we can to support the people of Sudan to ensure that there is far greater volume on the situation. Of course, DEC appeals are subject to broadcasters, but we do need to raise this up the agenda. I have tried to raise it since being appointed as the Prime Minister’s special representative on PSVI. I was in Colombia to talk to the International Alliance on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict last week and I focused on ensuring that the voices people heard were not mine but those of the survivors, the people who have experienced this terrible crime. I am absolutely determined. What we did at the General Assembly of the United Nations, but also at the special Security Council meeting that I chaired, was to ensure that the voices of survivors are heard. We must not simply sit back and quote statistics: we need to ensure that the population hears that first-hand evidence. I think I have answered all the questions and I want to ensure that there is time for other noble Lords to ask questions, so I will leave it there for now.

19:41:00

My Lords, the Government’s Statement and the Minister’s active engagement on this issue are to be warmly welcomed. The increase in humanitarian aid is helpful and necessary, but state institutions in Sudan are weak, there is active mischief-making by external parties, including Russia, and the best hope for Sudan surely lies in civil society organisations. Those are assisted by the Addis process and the African Union’s expanded mechanism, which is being helped by the United States, but what proportion of this additional funding from the UK is going to go to supporting civil society institutions within Sudan and their contribution to conflict resolution and peacekeeping?

The noble Lord is absolutely right: we are financially supporting Taqaddum, which is operating outside but also operating within civilian groups inside. Picking up the point that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, raised, on education and children, Education Cannot Wait will also receive £14 million to provide safe learning spaces and psychosocial support to over 200,000 vulnerable children in refugee and host communities in Sudan, as well as in Chad and other countries. On civil society, it is absolutely right that we have to mobilise and give voice to that. We should not restrict it just to those organisations that we know exist; one of the things I will be doing on Wednesday is attending a round table hosted by Zeinab Badawi, president of SOAS, who is establishing a Sudanese diaspora group initiative called Humanitarian Action for Sudan. We are going to take every opportunity to ensure that we can build support, both inside Sudan and outside.

My Lords, I join others in welcoming the work that the noble Lord has been doing on this issue, but, in the context of all too many unprecedented crises in the world, the conflict in Sudan has, at times, appeared invisible to too many world leaders, who appear to be missing in action. We had Jan Egeland here recently, speaking to the All-Party Group on Sudan. He has said that Sudan is in danger of becoming another failed state because civil society is disintegrating amid a proliferation of armed groups. Will the Minister comment on that? He also talked about how, as well as the two warring parties in Sudan, the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, there are many other smaller ethnic armies looting and, as he put it, “going berserk on civilians”. The parties are tearing down their own houses and massacring their own people. What can the noble Lord say to us about that? In echoing what has been said about the plight of children, all of us were deeply moved last week to hear the report from Lyse Doucet, who said: “Nowhere else on earth are so many children on the run, so many people living with such acute hunger”. She went on to describe the situation in Darfur. It is 20 years since I went to Darfur, when nearly 300,000 people were killed and 2 million people displaced. This is in danger of happening all over again. Will the noble Lord, in responding to the points the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, put to him about genocide and about justice, tell us what accountability mechanisms are being put in place? Finally, there is the issue of refugees and displaced people. There are 120 million people displaced in the world, 12 million in Sudan and an extra 7.5 million since this war began 18 months ago. What are we able to do, using the leverage of His Majesty’s Government, to bring together statesmen, stateswomen and world leaders on the kind of regular basis on which the COP meets, to do something, until we start to dramatically reduce the number of people who will otherwise end up in small boats, drowning on dangerous and treacherous journeys of escape?

I think the noble Lord is absolutely right: we cannot afford for Sudan to fail. It is absolutely important that we focus on ensuring that we can have a return to proper civilian rule. It is because of that that I do not suggest that the conflict is simply about two generals. That is the consequence of it, but the conflict has other roots within it, and that is why it is important to focus on that civilian resolve to bring people together. When I spoke to the Taqaddum leader, what he stressed to me and I stressed to him was to have an inclusive process to ensure that all groups are brought together to find a solution. He is absolutely committed to that, even though it is difficult because he is sitting down with people who are not easily friends. It is very difficult to build that situation together. The noble Lord is absolutely right that we have to build consensus and see the solution in much broader peace-building ways. He is also right that we cannot allow people to act with impunity. He knows that, since 2003, we have supported the ICC investigation and we are committed to continue that. We are certainly committed to ensuring that violations of international humanitarian law are properly monitored, and evidence gathered, so that we can eventually hold people properly to account for their crimes. At the end of the day, what we have done is consistently condemn such violence. As the noble Lord knows, our long-standing policy is for competent courts to determine whether genocide is taking place, but that does not stop us acting to ensure that we prevent such crimes and actually hold people to account, so that they know that if they continue to commit such crimes, we will hold them to account. So, he is absolutely right. One thing that we have to keep stressing is the importance of our peace-building and development efforts, which are all about creating a much more secure world. If we are really to address migration, we have to focus on that, and certainly that is what this Government are determined to do.

My Lords, this Statement from the Government is obviously extremely welcome, as my noble friend Lord Boateng has said. The Minister’s own leadership on this is exemplary. Clearly, bringing an end to this conflict is where we ultimately want to be. Alongside the humanitarian efforts—which we are obviously putting in and which are laudable—what avenues are there for diplomacy? This might go along with the kinds of questions that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked, about the fora in which we might be able to discuss these matters.

My noble friend is absolutely right: we cannot simply focus just on the humanitarian situation, as desperate as that is. Our efforts should go into not only trying to establish an immediate ceasefire but longer-term diplomatic work to ensure that that ceasefire is sustainable and that we can return to civilian rule. Of course, we have seen the talks in Geneva where RSF turned up but SAF did not, and there was engagement. Our first step was at the Security Council, where sadly there was the cynical application of that veto by the Russians, but that does not stop us in our determination to seek other diplomatic means. Our beginning is to ensure that those parties follow the commitments that they made at Jeddah, and that they have confidence in a mechanism where they can stick to their commitments. It also means that we have to work with all our allies to ensure that people understand how important that ceasefire is, and how important it is for it to be sustainable. We are working with all our allies to ensure that we can put maximum leverage on those parties to stick to the commitments they have made and achieve a ceasefire. I assure my noble friend that we are using all diplomatic levers to ensure that.

My Lords, when Minister Dodds visited Sudan, she welcomed the then opening of the border between Chad and Darfur for three months. She then commented that it was important that the Sudanese Armed Forces should not impose any unnecessary restrictions and should make the flow of aid possible. In the Statement, she quite rightly welcomed a further opening for three months but again referred to restrictions by the Sudanese Armed Forces. Can the Minister say more about how much progress we have made in allowing aid to arrive?

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we welcome the three-month extension, but the barriers to delivering aid are not simply that border, and it is not simply what we are able to get through. The simple fact is that both parties are imposing all kinds of constraints on it, which is why we are using our calls for the protection of civilians and the call of the Secretary-General to focus on that access issue. We are working with all NGOs, including the United Nations, to ensure that we can get that aid right through the country. We will certainly be monitoring the situation and holding those people to account. In effect, some of those parties are using starvation as a weapon of war, and we have to hold them to account for that.

My Lords, the additional money going to Sudan is very welcome, likewise the money going to neighbouring countries which are dealing with refugees. It is such a dreadful problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, acknowledged. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for all his work, including by giving voice to the voiceless, as he has been doing in Colombia. I know he will do that throughout the world. I also pay tribute to Tom Fletcher, who is extraordinary. The fact that he went there in his first two weeks of having been appointed to OCHA is quite amazing. Many noble Lords have rightly spoken about civil society, but what exactly are we doing, together with the international community, to support the cultivation of an inclusive, representative, apolitical civilian bloc to provide a viable political alternative to the warring parties and to build the longer-term routes that are needed to a healthy, active Sudanese civil society that can underpin the governance systems that are so necessary?

My noble friend is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has been working on this too, in terms of Abdalla Hamdok’s activity and the Taqaddum coalition. That coalition is seeking to broaden its base and engage all parties. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned proliferation. There are groups proliferating from this, using all kinds of conflicts that have previously occurred and reigniting them between communities. That is why, when we sat down with Abdalla Hamdok, we focused on how he needs to have the most inclusive process possible—and our allies are also focusing on this. That is not easy in all the circumstances, but it is what we are doing. My noble friend is right that we need to ensure that we have all those voices heard. That is the most important thing, as we heard on the radio this morning with Tom’s report—like my noble friend, I think that it is great that he was able to get into Sudan so early; it shows that he will be absolutely focused on making sure that the world hears from those survivors and from those women and children who gave their first-hand accounts. We need to focus on that, which is why I am also concerned to ensure that we build that coalition not just among Sudanese within Sudan but among the diaspora here so that we get an inclusive approach to a final solution which will help to return civilian rule.

My Lords, in the late 1970s, I was administering law in northern Uganda, and there were many refugees from south Sudan. Archbishop Luwum did a fantastic job in persuading the Uganda Government to provide places where refugees could go, allowing them to go to schools and universities. He did a fantastic job. If the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds was here, he would have told the story of how he put his life in danger by visiting Sudan regularly, because they are linked together. I think that one of his messages would have been to ask the Minister to ensure that he and many others—who have a lot of first-hand experience and know where the NGOs are—are part of a conversation, because he has been doing amazing work in terms of civil society. Finally, I thank the Minister. His voice has been heard, and he should keep that voice. I have every confidence that with what he is doing in terms of partnership, particularly with the African Union, he will get a breakthrough, because he has been very consistent. He has also honoured people. He does not do things like a colonist does; he does things all on the same level.

I thank the noble and right reverend Lord for his remarks. The approach of the Foreign Secretary and of the whole Government is to ensure that we raise this issue and put it higher up the global agenda. I have also spoken to the right reverend Prelate about this situation. The Church, particularly the Church of England, has close connections in Sudan. I am working with it to ensure that we can support its activity, building cross-community support for peace. It is also important to recognise that we are supporting 700,000 people who have been affected in neighbouring countries such as Chad and South Sudan. We are working with UN and NGO partners to provide food and cash. We have organised cash-transfer systems to ensure that the local economies in those countries are not severely impacted, and we are also providing shelter and medical assistance. Those are important actions to ensure that this terrible conflict does not spread and undermine security in that part of Africa.