UK hosts Sudan talks as people face famine

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - LONDON — A high-level international conference is under way in London to find "a pathway to peace" in Sudan, hosted by the UK's Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Sudan's civil war began exactly two years ago causing what aid agencies call the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The UK is promising an extra $120m (£91m) worth of food and medical assistance.

Charities say 30 million people in Sudan are in desperate need, and people are starving as a result of the war.

"Many have given up on Sudan – that is wrong – it's morally wrong when we see so many civilians beheaded, infants as young as one subjected to sexual violence, more people facing famine than anywhere else in the world... We simply cannot look away," Lammy said opening the meeting on Tuesday.

More than 12 million have been forced from their homes in Sudan and tens of thousands killed, amid widespread reports of sexual violence across the country and a genocide in Darfur.

In recent days, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched an intense ground and aerial assault on camps for displaced people close to the city of el-Fasher in an attempt to seize the last state capital in Darfur held by their rival, the Sudanese army.

Zamzam, which has provided temporary shelter for an estimated 500,000 people, is now being systematically destroyed by fire from intentional arson by RSF forces, according to the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab, which has analyzed satellite images taken of the camp.

The RSF has not commented on the allegation.

Tuesday's ministerial conference is co-chaired by the UK, EU and African Union.

Officials say the aim is to unite international partners around a common position, to get more food and medicine into Sudan and to begin charting a way to end the hostilities.

Neither of Sudan's main warring parties - the Sudanese Armed Forces nor RSF - has been invited.

They will be represented instead by regional allies, some of whom diplomats say are fuelling the conflict. Among them is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is accused of arming the RSF, something it denies.

The Kenyan government is attending Tuesday's talks, despite accusations at home and abroad that they are backing the RSF. President William Ruto hosted RSF figures earlier this year in Nairobi, where they announced plans for a rival government in Sudan.

February's RSF summit in Nairobi "was purely to dialogue among themselves", Kenya's Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi told the BBC's Newsday programme. He insisted that events were misreported and "at no time has Kenya been party to a government in exile or a parallel government in any country... Kenya stands for one Sudan".

"Kenya is a centre for mediation," Mudavadi added saying that their approach was "not about taking sides" and they had previously hosted Sudan's de facto leader Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan too.

The war - a power struggle between the army and the RSF - began on 15 April 2023, after the leaders of the army and RSF fell out over the political future of the country.

Speaking on Tuesday in London, the African Union (AU) envoy Bankole Adeoye said "there can be no military solution in Sudan, only an immediate, unconditional cessation of hostilities. This must be followed by an all-inclusive dialogue to end the war.

"Ordinary Sudanese people are bearing the brunt of this unnecessary war. The AU is calling on all belligerents to stop this war," he added.

"The AU will not allow a Balkanization... or partition of Sudan." — BBC