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War in Sudan – Security Council Media Stakeout | United Nations
Summary
477seconds video
The speaker addresses the United Nations Security Council about the severe humanitarian crisis in Sudan caused by the ongoing war. They highlight the dire situation, including hunger, forced displacement, and attacks on civilians, emphasizing that the war neglects civilian lives and obstructs humanitarian aid. MedSan Sofrottier, an independent organization, provides medical care in Sudan, and urges the Council to allow uninhibited humanitarian assistance and prevent attacks on civilians.
The international response to the crisis has been inadequate, with previous commitments by involved parties proving to be empty. The speaker cites personal experiences witnessing the devastating impact of the conflict, such as hospital struggles after attacks and rising malnutrition and diseases due to the impeding rainy season.
The speaker criticizes US aid cuts for worsening the humanitarian situation and stresses the need for more aid agencies in Sudan. They urge the international community, including the United Nations, to ensure the free flow of humanitarian supplies and deploy workers to assist on the ground.
The message to influential global leaders, including former President Trump, is to urgently scale up humanitarian efforts and ensure that international humanitarian laws are followed to protect civilians.
Full Script
Thank you for being here. So I’ve just briefed the United Nations Security Council on the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the war in Sudan. The level of hunger, forced displacement and humanitarian need are beyond any other crisis on the international agenda. Siege tactics, the obstruction of humanitarian aid and direct attacks on civilians are causing unconscionable harm. This truly is a war on people without regard for civilian lives. MedSan Sofrottier is an independent organisation that provides medical care in 11 of Sudan’s states on both sides of the conflict and according to humanitarian principles. Our message today to the Council is that the war in Sudan cannot continue to be waged with a shameless disregard for civilian lives. Humanitarian aid must not be obstructed by the war in parties, civilians must not be attacked, killed time and time again and life-saving international aid must be provided in sufficient qualities and with sufficient resolve to reach people in the midst of this devastating conflict. This war has been waged for nearly two years yet the international response has been negligible, the stated commitments by all sides to provide civilians, to protect civilians have proven to be empty words on many occasions. I witness this myself on the 1st of February after the shelling of the Shabin market in Andaman in Khartoum by the rapid support forces. The emergency departments of Al-Nau Hospital, which MedSan Sofrottier supports, struggled to care for the wave after wave of catastrophically injured men, women and children. That same week the Sudanese armed forces bombed a peanut factory and civilian neighbourhoods in South Darfur, overwhelming the Nyala teaching hospital with casualties. Our teams are warning of an alarming of alarming levels of malnutrition in many areas, while infectious and vaccine preventable diseases are rising. The coming rainy season underlines the urgency of ensuring that people in Sudan receive food and medical supplies in the coming weeks, before roads become impassable and levels of hunger rise further. I am here to underline the urgency for everybody with the influence in the war of Sudan to ensure that this stops. Thank you, Shafiq Mordes. I wanted to ask you about first of all the US cuts to aid, what kind of impact does that have on the overall response of incidents and are there enough aid agencies working in Sudan and why we have given aid from what has been raised in the Council? There wasn’t enough aid agencies working in Sudan before these cuts came into play. I think we can only assume that the cuts are going to further damage the humanitarian situation in Sudan. What we have seen ourselves is organisations having to stop services. Water trucking in Nyala is one example of some primary healthcare services in Nyala. When I was in Khartoum I spoke to the authorities there and they told me that in the two days before we met they had five organisations telling them that they would have to stop activities in the Khartoum area. Thank you. Edith Letter from the Associated Press. Your remarks were very hard hitting at the Security Council for passing resolutions without doing anything to ensure that the government is not in a position to stop the activities of the people in the country. What reaction did you hear from members of states during the Council meeting? I heard a variety of reactions. I think the message that we are trying to get across is that there needs to be an agreement to allow the uninhibited free flow of humanitarian assistance in all areas of Sudan. I think some heard that. At the same time I heard some statements which I hope are not hollow statements and actually be translated into action because it is all right talking about resolve and agreement here. That is what happens on the ground that really matters. I heard some positive comments and I hope they are translated into something practical which is what we are really suggesting today. Hi, I am Margaret Fischier with the Voice of America. Mr. Lockhear, you said the international response has been almost negligible. Why do you think the world does not pay more attention to Sudan? Why aren’t they helping 30 million people who are going hungry and not putting more pressure on more and more used to stuff? The response really has needed a massive scale-up since the start of this crisis. There are some really brave organisations and brave humanitarian workers who are struggling. I think we can even look at the momentum that has been made through hahahaость as well as the lines every day of the week. The situation is so catastrophic for millions of people. It should be something that is on all of our consciousness on a daily basis. I have a question on what you say for the fact that many countries, that this video is talking about, that can’t do something that’s it, or they are saying that it’s just like, actually, including the best delivery of what it is for all the countries, and why do you think this is going to be a real action that can happen in the future? And how do you think that will happen after a certain time? I don’t think I made a comment on that precisely. I mean, what we’re saying is that there needs to be a clear agreement to allow flow of humanitarian assistance to come in. There needs to be, I think, the United Nations Secretary General giving a full mandate to UN agencies to have full presence in Darfur, and to be negotiating that very clearly with the authorities in Sudan. It’s imperative that we not only scale up the supplies that come in, because humanitarian assistance is much more than trucks and shipments of goods. It’s also about having workers, in our case, medical workers, doctors and nurses on the ground to be able to treat people directly and support the local Sudanese health workers who are trying to carry out medical activities across the whole of Sudan. One more question, please. Yes, Mr. President Trump has been saying about the conflicts that he wants peace, he wants the economy to stop, the killing to stop. What is your message for the White House, the President Trump, to give attention to Sudan? I think the message is the same as the message that we’ve been giving today. We need a dramatic and urgent scale-up of humanitarian assistance. We need this war to follow the international humanitarian law. Every war has rules, and we expect that civilians are protected and spared from the horrors that we’ve been seeing in Sudan over the last two years. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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