Amid 'apocalyptic level of humanitarian desperation' in Sudan, activist Kholood Khair speaks to France 24

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00:00Now the conflict in Sudan has some horrifying statistics. It's cost tens of thousands of lives

00:06and brought famine to half a million people at least. Eight million have been forced from their

00:12homes in the world's largest displacement crisis, all in the 16 months of fighting between the army

00:17and the RSF paramilitary. Aid fails to get through to where it's desperately needed but weapons

00:22continue to be in ample supply. France 24 caught up with Sudanese campaigner Holod Kair

00:29as she was in New York this week to brief the United Nations Security Council on the crisis

00:35in her homeland. She says it's a war of far too high costs and far too low engagement from the

00:43international community. This really is I think an apocalyptic level of humanitarian desperation

00:52that we're seeing in Sudan right now and the worst part is that there doesn't seem to be

00:57any kind of resolution or proper addressing of this on the horizon. The UN Security Council

01:02hasn't actually met that many times on Sudan so this was an opportunity to very quickly bring

01:07them up to speed on the situation for women and girls in the country related to the protection

01:12concerns that there are in the protection vacuum that has been left behind by the withdrawal of

01:17various UN missions and what we know from you know reports on the ground is that everything

01:23we're hearing leads us to describe Sudan these days in superlatives. It's the world's largest

01:28humanitarian situation, it is the world's largest displaced population, is the world's largest

01:34magnitude famine and those kinds of concerns require very urgent input of resources, very urgent

01:42attention by the international community, neither of which are currently there. There are some things

01:47in the international community you can do very quickly. One is to ensure that Sudan remains at

01:51the top of the agenda or very close to the top of the agenda in terms of the United Nations but

01:56also other international institutions and global stakeholders' agendas. The second thing is to

02:04very quickly get together the data reliably and accurately to report what we're

02:10hearing from the ground which is that famine is not just being reported in one area but in

02:15several areas in the country. Once that famine declaration comes through the ability to marshal

02:20resources both financial and sort of human resources to make sure that there is an adequate

02:27response should be much easier. Then of course there is the particular concerns around protection.

02:32The United Nations already released its own directions to put together a protection of

02:38civilians options paper and that was in May. Since then we haven't seen enough traction on that and

02:44we need a concrete written out full report giving a full range of options up to and including the

02:50deployment of a protection of civilians mission in the country to adequately respond to the

02:55concerns of protection for the whole population but specifically for women and girls. Then there

03:00also needs to be very urgently a full comprehensive perspective on how to end the conflict in Sudan.

03:07Currently we're seeing a myriad of negotiations in terms of peace negotiations and political

03:13negotiations that are not cohering with each other, that are all doing very very different

03:17things and that is not going to help us get to a ceasefire. And lastly the recognition and quite

03:23urgently the recognition that a ceasefire alone will not save lives that there has to be a much

03:27more concerted push from the international community towards inculcating you know women's

03:33peace and security norms as well as protection norms into the broad work that is going to carry

03:39out and this would be much better housed in a fully fledged protection mission. We need to see

03:44much better cross-pollination between the African Union and the United Nations particularly on this

03:49issue of protection until such time that a ceasefire can be negotiated.

03:55Sudanese activist Kholoud Khaieh there speaking to France 24 as she was in New York to brief the

04:02United Nations Security Council over the needs caused by 16 months of war in Sudan.

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