French President Macron said Monday’s Paris conference raised more than €2 billion in aid to help Sudan and its neighbouring countries.
The international pledges come exactly a year after the start of the conflict between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which has forced millions to flee and brought the population to the brink of famine.
“This support will be able to respond to the most urgent needs” for Sudan’s population ranging from a food crisis to education, Macron said late Monday, adding that European Union countries had pledged nearly half the humanitarian aid total.
“It is a conflict imposed on the people that only produces grief and suffering, provoking one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world,” Macron also said.
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“There is a terrible cynicism behind this war,” he added, accusing regional powers of seeking to exploit the situation for their own interests.
With the conference “our duty was to show that we are not forgetting what is going on in Sudan and there are no double standards” as the world focuses on other crises.
Macron, who in May 2021 had hosted a conference in Paris on Sudan’s democratic transition, paid tribute to the 2018 uprising against authoritarian rule that many hoped would usher in a new future for the country.
“No one forgot the revolution of 2018 which raised so much hope. It was ruined by cynicism… We will get there,” he said.
The EU has pledged €350 million, while France has added €110 million, three sources said.
Germany already pledged €244 million earlier on Monday.
The United States said it will invest a total of $147 million (€138 million).
“We can manage together to avoid a terrible famine catastrophe, but only if we get active together now,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, adding that, in the worst-case scenario, one million people could die of hunger this year.
The internal conflict has killed over 14,000 people and displaced over 10 million people, according to the UN.
The United Nations is seeking $2.7 billion (€2.5 billion) this year for aid inside Sudan, where 25 million people need assistance. An appeal that was just 6 percent funded before the Paris meeting.
It is seeking a further $1.4 billion for assistance in neighbouring countries that have housed hundreds of thousands of refugees.
