UN: ‘Sudan horror knows no bounds’, as civilians trapped in dire conditions • FRANCE 24 English

But first, the UN’s rights chief has described the circumstances of Sudan’s war as a horror that knows no bounds. At least 542 people have been killed in North Dur over the last 10 days alone as RSF paramilitaries bombarded the El Fascia, the last city held by the army in the region. The RSF is trying to make up for losing cartoon to the military last month. and on Thursday shelled the pres presidential palace in the capital. Overall though, tens of thousands of people have been killed in a conflict that split the nation in two and created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. I’m joined now by the head of UNOPS. It’s one of the UN agencies trying to keep things like health care, shelter available to the citizens and the civilians bearing the brunt of the fighting in Sudan. Now, he’s just back from a trip through conflict zones in East Africa. George, thank you so much for making the time to speak to me. Uh, first of all, just give us a bit of a sense of what you learned and what you saw on the ground in Sudan. Thank you for having me again uh Georgia. Um indeed I I came recently from the Horn of Africa and particularly a visit to Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. And in Sudan indeed as you just mentioned we are facing one of the largest if not the largest humanitarian crisis in the world with 13 million people u in desperate need for humanitarian uh uh support. uh 13 million forces displaced including 3.3 million refugees and obviously on the ground what we could see is one in one hand uh the the people facing desperate need for support but at the same time their eagerness to go back home. uh I I could see that for instance when visiting uh an internal displaced people camp uh where obviously the population saw some hope in the fact that cartoon has been released so people want to go back home but at the same time they don’t feel safe uh with the proliferation of mind with the proliferation of explosives with the lack of uh health education housing so this is a really important moment where the international community must step Sudan cannot become a forgotten crisis. They need $4.2 billion $4.2 billion of emergent urgent support. You know how much has been provided? Just 7%. So this is the moment where the international community must step in and provide all the monitarian support that is needed. uh we need the parties to engage on a genuine dialogue to ensure that humanitarian that international humanitarian law is fully respected but we also need to support the people on early recovery and reconstruction. I think sometimes perhaps there is a a risk that an understanding what and who that that money is for is lost in the difficulty in seeing any progress in terms of peace talks between the combatants themselves. Now, one thing that really struck me when I was speaking to your team ahead of this was a description of some of the civilians with whom you’ve met as being um uh people who who suffer twice. Not just because of the violence, but also just the exhaustion of trying to make their way through a world where all the infrastructure, everything that makes things work has just crumbled around them. from your time in Sudan, have your has your understanding about just how impactful or traumatic that can be been been been deepened or changed? And also, has that fed into what you envisionage as being necessary as as being priorities for UNOPS going forward? Well, indeed infrastructure matters and I heard uh from the people but also from from for instance the minister of health the impact of the of the war on the destruction of critical facilities namely hospitals. Uh so it was not just the house uh the houses that were uh target not just the people that was target also the critical infrastructure has been destroyed. So this is a key element. The people won’t be able to go back home. They won’t be able to have access to uh sustainable development if they don’t have access to basic infrastructure namely uh education and health. Let me give you one example uh on uh education. I saw a school uh in Port Sudan uh with more than 800 girls going there every day. But that school at the same time is at the same time an internal displace people center. So in total they have 1,000 people between the kids that go to the school and those families that stay there. Do you know how many letterings they have or 10,000 people? Three. So this is the concrete elements that are important which is the Sudan are in desperate need for humanitarian support but they also have the right uh to the future which means that we need to support them with roads uh schools hospitals energy uh but also demining removing all these mines. So it’s really important that infrastructure is not being perceived as something that is a nice to have only when the war ends. It’s something that is critical now and the numbers as I said are quite eloquent. They need $4.2 billion and they only got 7%. So the international community cannot forget what is happening in Sudan. Something that you mentioned earlier, you you said um the war in Sudan is a forgotten it can’t afford to be a forgotten conflict. Now you weren’t just in Sudan, you passed through Ethiopia and you passed through Somalia. um why do you think that they don’t attract as much attention as perhaps conflicts elsewhere and what’s the practical cost of that and we could be talking also about Mosmbique in Cabo Delgavo or or Mali or many other crisis in Africa the problem uh of this conflict that became portrated crisis uh is related with our lack uh of understanding of the interdependence of this crisis but also the fact that sometimes we are not seeing the consequences in our backyard and this is I know it might not be politically correct but this is one of the things that I heard from people in Sudan they were telling me you know why uh we are somehow invisible to the international community it’s because the refugees goes not to the other continent they stay in the neighbor root. So the fact that some of the uh uh uh forcer displacement is staying the region rather than going to other continents namely Europe is also uh u a way to these kind of things remain a bit invisible. So we have a moral imperative we have a moral imperative to support those people facing this this conflict affected countries. uh prevention always uh humanitarian as needed and development wherever possible. This is the recipe. Thank you so much George Mora the Silva there the executive direct director of EUNOPS

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shelled the presidential palace in Khartoum on Thursday in their second bombardment of the capital in less than a week. For more information, FRANCE 24’s Georja Calvin-Smith interviewed Jorge Moreira da Silva, UNOPS Executive Director.
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