Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand announced one other $120 million in humanitarian and development aid for Sudan on Wednesday because the African nation’s civil war enters its fourth 12 months.
Anand told The Canadian Press hunger is getting used as a weapon of war in Sudan nevertheless it’s as much as global tribunals to make a decision whether a genocide is happening.
“Sudan is a priority for us,” Anand said in a Wednesday interview. “I’m gravely concerned concerning the worsening humanitarian crisis.”
The United Nations says 34 million people in Sudan — two-thirds of the population — need humanitarian support. Greater than 13 million people have been displaced and the UN has reported no less than 40,000 deaths, though aid groups say the true death toll is probably going much higher.
The conflict began as a political struggle between the country’s military and paramilitary forces and erupted right into a brutal ethnic conflict within the Darfur region. Sudan is now divided between a military-backed, internationally recognized government within the capital Khartoum, and a rival Rapid Support Forces-controlled administration in Darfur, a region in western Sudan.
Canada has announced greater than $94 million in humanitarian aid for Sudan, resembling emergency food and nutrition support. That sum includes aid for displaced Sudanese in neighbouring countries.
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Ottawa can be sending $25 million in development assistance, resembling supports for schools and trauma counselling, through Save the Children Canada, together with funding for sexual violence prevention through the UN.
Randeep Sarai, secretary of state for international development, announced the funding at a conference in Berlin, where German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the equivalent of greater than C$2 billion in humanitarian aid has been pledged by various nations.
That sum includes C$343 million offered by Germany, together with Canada’s contribution.
Wadephul told German media the help was being offered to assist fill a funding gap left by cuts to U.S. foreign aid under President Donald Trump.
The Sudanese government in Khartoum, meanwhile, slammed the conference as “unacceptable” interference and said Germany didn’t seek the advice of with Sudan before convening it.
Anand said the Canadian funding tops up $220 million Canada already has pledged for people living in Sudan and people who have fled the conflict.
“There’s credible evidence that starvation is being deliberately used as a technique of warfare,” she said. “Hospitals (and) civilian infrastructure across the board are being targeted. Women and girls have described sexual violence not as an exception, but as an inescapable reality.
“The people of Sudan need water. They need health care services. They need nutrition, they need protected places to be, and security. That is what international humanitarian law stands for.”
Anand said the help is a component of Canada’s efforts to assist civilians caught up in wars and political conflicts in places starting from Cuba to Lebanon.
“One among the priorities that this aid underlines is for us to be responsive on this very volatile world where civilians and civilian infrastructure are consistently being attacked,” she said.
Washington has accused Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces of committing a genocide. Anand said that determination is as much as international courts.
“The legal determination of whether a situation amounts to a genocide rests with international tribunals, but we don’t shrink back from identifying that there could also be credible evidence — as there may be on this case — of severe and horrific human rights abuses,” she said.
She noted the RSF attack on a hospital within the Sudanese city of el-Fasher last October, which killed a whole lot of patients and led to the kidnapping of multiple medical examiners.
Videos posted online showed hospital rooms pocked with bullet holes, and a Yale University evaluation of satellite images found pools of blood suggesting mass killings at multiple sites.
Quite a few aid groups are calling for more attention and funding for the Sudan crisis.
The Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights has proposed a plan to empower civil society in Sudan, end the violence and seek accountability through multilateral institutions.
The plan, released Wednesday, has been backed by multiple advocates, including former United Nations ambassador Bob Rae and former senator Roméo Dallaire.
— with files from The Associated Press
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