London conference on Sudan held as massacres unfold in North Darfur
A conference in London on the Sudan conflict has begun as massacres unfold in North Darfur, with more than a million people in el-Fasher pleading for protection while the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) advance on the city.
Britain is co-hosting Tuesday's summit alongside the African Union, the European Union, France and Germany, and announced a £120m aid package as the conference kicked off.
The EU and member states also pledged more than $592m in aid.
Aid workers and analysts on Tuesday said the summit must prioritise protecting civilian lives instead of just being a pledging conference.
"Protection of civilians cannot be allowed to slip between the cracks," Kate Ferguson, co-executive director of NGO Protection Approaches, told journalists ahead of the meeting.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
On Monday night, multiple sources in and around el-Fasher told Middle East Eye that the RSF is preparing to invade the city, which is the capital of North Darfur state and the only place in western Sudan still held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its allies.
The death toll from various areas of North Darfur since the RSF began its offensive on Thursday is over 800 people, according to activists and officials.
The bloodiest scenes were witnessed in Zamzam, a camp for Sudanese displaced during the 2003-05 Darfur genocide just south of the city.
“What I have seen is very brutal: they killed all the young men who are younger than 50 years old, they burnt the majority of the houses, they raped unknown numbers of women and intentionally displaced the people from the camp itself,” Mohamed Adam, a Zamzam resident who fled to el-Fasher on Sunday evening, told MEE.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: "As I saw earlier this year on a visit to Chad’s border with Sudan, the warring parties have shown an appalling disregard for the civilian population of Sudan."
The British government has unveiled a £120m food and aid package for Sudan ahead of the conference. The new funding aims to reach more than 600,000 people and comes on the back of a £113m aid package announced last November.
However, humanitarian workers said much of the aid money already pledged for Sudan is yet to be released due to restrictions on the ground.
Earlier this year, the Labour government announced it would cut UK aid spending from 0.5 to 0.3 percent of gross national income (GNI) by 2027.
The move triggered the resignation of development minister Anneliese Dodds, who said important programmes in places like Sudan could not be protected despite promises from Lammy.
Meanwhile, US aid cuts have left an $800m black hole in the humanitarian budget for Sudan.
Mukhtar Elsheikh, who works in the grassroots Emergency Response Room (ERR) in northern Khartoum's Bahri, said 80 percent of the EERs' work across Sudan was previously funded by US aid.
"We need support politically and financially," he said. "This conference couldn't come at a more critical moment. It cannot afford to fail."
No Sudanese
Ali Youssef al-Sharif, Sudan’s foreign minister, said on Monday that the RSF’s offensive is intended to coincide with the conference, and that the paramilitary force will use el-Fasher's capture to declare a parallel government.
The summit has attracted controversy after the UK decided not to allow Sudan's government, based in army stronghold Port Sudan, or members of Sudanese civil society from attending. The RSF, which has been sanctioned by the British government, has also not been invited.
Sharif has condemned the British government for excluding his government while extending invitations to countries accused of supporting the RSF, including the United Arab Emirates, which has been accused of complicity in genocide at the International Court of Justice.
"Inviting the UAE doesn't correspond to the message that this conference is about peace," Sharif said.
Eva Khair, director of the Sudan Transnational Consortium, said pressure must be placed at the conference on the UAE and other states backing the warring parties.
"What is unforgivable is there not being any Sudanese in the room," she said, noting that local initiatives like the 2,500 ERRs across Sudan were the people actively working on relief efforts. "Who is providing the aid and why are they not in the room?"
War broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF on 15 April 2023 over plans to fold the paramilitaries into the regular army. The UN calls it the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Famine has been identified in eight areas of the country, including Zamzam.
The army retains control over large swathes of territory in the east and north, while RSF holds most of Darfur in the western half of the country and parts of the south.
Last year an independent inquiry carried out by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre found that there is “clear and convincing evidence” that the RSF and its allied militias “have committed and are committing genocide against the Masalit”, a Black African community.
The United States has also accused the RSF of genocide and sanctioned its leader, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti. Washington has similarly sanctioned SAF leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing the military of war crimes such as indiscriminate bombing and obstructing aid.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary general, said ahead of the conference that the United Nations wants to see Sudan's "neighbours and the international community move in unity of purpose towards peace instead of fuelling the conflict".
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
