By Michelle Nichols and Daphne Psaledakis
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday announced some $200 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Sudan, where a conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Blinken, chairing a United Nations Security Council meeting on Sudan, said the funding would provide food, shelter and healthcare to Sudan, where he said more aid needs to be delivered safely and rapidly.
He also said the United States would use every tool, including further sanctions, to prevent abuses in Sudan and hold perpetrators accountable, calling on others to implement similar punitive measures on those worsening the conflict.
The U.N. says nearly 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population – need aid as famine has taken hold in displacement camps and 11 million people have fled their homes. Nearly 3 million of those people have left for other countries.
The war erupted in April 2023 amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule.
Senior U.N. aid official Edem Wosornu said the “horrendous human toll” continued.
“Fierce hostilities in populated areas escalating and spreading, with evident disregard for international humanitarian law. Civilians killed and injured in unbearable numbers,” she told the Security Council.
“Millions stalked by the threat of famine, in the world’s largest hunger crisis. Sexual violence rife,” Wosornu added. “This is a crisis of staggering scale and cruelty. One that demands sustained and urgent attention.”
The war in Sudan has produced waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF. The RSF denies harming civilians and attributes the activity to rogue actors.
Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist with nonprofit group PAEMA (Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities), recounted speaking with a young woman from Sudan’s Darfur region earlier this year. Lewis said the woman had been gang-raped in her family home.
“Her father beat against the door of the room she was trapped in trying to save his baby girl. In return, the RSF troops shot him dead for daring to protect her,” Lewis told the council.
The RSF and allies have committed “staggering” levels of sexual abuse, raping civilians as troops advance and abducting some women as sex slaves, a U.N. fact-finding mission reported in October, with victims ranging from 8 to 75 years old.
The report echoed investigations by Reuters and rights groups into widespread sexual abuse in the conflict. The RSF has previously said it would investigate allegations and bring perpetrators to justice.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Leslie Adler and Rosalba O’Brien)
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