International aid for Sudan ‘nowhere near enough’

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00:00First, the civil war in Sudan is amongst the world's worst. At least 20,000 people have been

00:05killed and an unprecedented man-made famine triggered by an ego clash between rival generals,

00:12one who leads the army, the other the RSF paramilitary. And yet the war attracts fatally

00:17little diplomatic action. As international leaders meet in New York for the UN General Assembly,

00:22the body's secretary general has raised alarm about the escalation in the Sudanese conflict,

00:29also on Wednesday the US pledged 24 million dollars in humanitarian aid and a ministerial

00:36meeting did try to ramp up more support. Humanitarian chiefs though want to see more

00:41being tangibly done at the diplomatic level. We urge member states to use all their leverage

00:49to bring the horrific violations of international humanitarian law and the abuses of human rights

00:56law to an end. Second, we need a concerted diplomatic push for a step change in humanitarian

01:05access, for the safe streamlined and swift delivery of aid through all possible routes.

01:14Now Khalid Khair is a Sudanese activist who was at that ministerial meeting on Wednesday,

01:20she joins me now from New York. Khalid, first of all you were also at UNGA a year ago trying

01:25to keep attention on what's happening in Sudan. Have you seen enough progress

01:29at the diplomatic level over the last year?

01:36Short answer is no and that's because the needs have grown exponentially since last year.

01:41Since last year we've had a famine declaration, we have had evidence of genocidal attacks and

01:46atrocities, we have had a deepening humanitarian situation, we have had you know the world's

01:53largest displacement crisis, the world's largest child displacement crisis in Sudan and we also

01:58have the world's largest protection crisis in Sudan with conflict-related sexual violence going

02:01through the roof and because of that you know what we're seeing just in the past two days of

02:06being here in New York is nowhere near enough from any of the member states as well as the

02:10UN Secretariat that goes any way into you know fully addressing what's the needs in Sudan.

02:17So in those conversations that you were party to on Wednesday,

02:20what kind of things are you hearing? I mean for example one aspect is how over the last

02:26year or so it's become increasingly apparent the war that started last August has components

02:32that in some ways make it a proxy war. Did that come up at any of the talks that you

02:38witnessed either on Wednesday or earlier in the week?

02:45No it hasn't, at least not in the open sessions that we have been privy to.

02:49As I understand there is a closed session today which might have much more frank conversation

02:52but for example today's session which you just recently showed had a group of countries

02:59assembled that are frankly very much part and parcel of the continuation of this war. You had

03:04United Arab Emirates, you had Egypt, you had Saudi Arabia, you had Qatar, all of these countries we

03:08know and we have very good evidence of that they are fueling the conflict by supporting one party

03:14or the other and so in many ways this humanitarian funding session today that had all of these

03:19countries in it is sort of like humanitarian gaslighting. All of these countries are able

03:24to come and sit and say that they feel for the people of Sudan but they are aware of the sort

03:28of state collapse of the humanitarian situation, the worsening humanitarian situation in Sudan

03:34and this kind of forum allows them to be able to both fund the war in Sudan and arm the war in

03:39Sudan and then you know express their sympathy and put frankly a pittance for most of them on

03:44the table for humanitarian response in Sudan. There has to be a way to do this better and there

03:49has to be a way for other countries that are truly concerned for the Sudanese people to hold

03:54the countries that fuel this conflict to account. Now what we know is the United States which gave

04:00around 424 million dollars pledged today is also the country that two days ago embraced

04:07Mohammed bin Zayed the ruler of the United Arab Emirates who the UN's own reporting has found

04:13is very much in you know part of the problem effectively that they are funding the RSF that

04:18they are arming the RSF and those two things cannot exist in the same universe. What we need

04:23to see is much more pressure on countries like the UAE but also like Egypt, like Qatar, like Saudi

04:29Arabia, like Russia and Iran who are sending arms to Sudan from other member states and we just

04:35haven't seen any traction on that. And when it comes to elements of the the conflict itself on

04:40the ground that they have been growing concerned about the imminent fall of the Darfur city of

04:44al-Fasha which has been under siege from the RSF for months now. Get us up to speed with what you

04:49understand to be happening there at the moment and whether there's been much diplomatic engagement on

04:55that front. Well sources on the ground as well as satellite imagery confirm that the RSF is making

05:03some gains in parts of al-Fasha but we are also seeing some of the joint forces these are

05:09armed groups that signed the peace agreement several years ago are pushing back as much as

05:14they can. Now the general trend and this has been the general trend since April is that the RSF are

05:20still likely to take al-Fasha. The issue there is that once they take al-Fasha the atrocity risk

05:26goes through the roof and this is something that we know will happen. This is the sort of pre-Rwanda

05:31moment where everybody knew exactly what was going to happen in Rwanda and did absolutely

05:36nothing to stop it and we are seeing that moment in al-Fasha right now and the world it's not like

05:40the world doesn't have information at hand they very much do. We haven't seen with the world

05:45assembled here in New York over this week anywhere near the level of concerted diplomatic pressure

05:50on the RSF on their backers to really push back away from that event eventuality or that scenario.

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