The United Nations Office at Geneva
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OCHA/UNHCR: Press Conference on Sudan - 07 February 2024
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Edited News , Press Conferences | OCHA , UNHCR
UN appeals for $4.1 billion in aid for war-torn Sudan and refugee-hosting countries
Speakers:
· Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (OCHA)
· Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
TRT: 2’16”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 07 February 2024 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Press conference at UNOG
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: UN flag alley
- Wide shot of press conference room with journalists
- SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator: “Half of the population of Sudan needs humanitarian assistance, 25 million people, far too many of them children. Eighteen million people are, quote unquote, ‘acutely food insecure’.”
- Wide shot: press room with journalists and photographer
- SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator: “If we start seeing famine in Sudan -it won't be the first time we've seen famine in Sudan- to add to this violence and displacement and lack of access and lack of a political horizon, then I think we can all agree we have no humanity in us that would allow this to happen.”
- Wide shot: press room
- SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees: “We are already seeing people fleeing Sudan, especially along certain routes from East Sudan and from Chad itself, where there's many of them towards Libya, Tunisia and then towards Europe. So, I have warned literally European countries in particular, that if the current neglect of this crisis continues, we will see secondary movements.”
- Medium shot: podium with speakers
- SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees: “When you ask people ‘would you go back if there was a cease fire’, they think carefully about the answer, and say ‘we would have to be convinced that there is a real peace and that the militia is not going to come into our house and kick us out again’. So, the message that I passed to the leadership and will continue to pass to the two leaderships is really ‘you're losing your own people. What's the purpose of fighting if you don't have people to rule?’”
- Various shots of the press room
UN appeals for $4.1 billion in aid for war-torn Sudan and refugee-hosting countries
The United Nations on Wednesday urged countries not to forget millions of people caught up in the conflict in Sudan as it called for $4.1 billion to help stave off famine fears and assist those who fled abroad to bordering States.
To date, the 10-month war has created one of the world’s “largest displacement and protection crises”, according to UN agencies. “Half of Sudan’s population, 25 million people, needs humanitarian assistance,” said Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief chief and head of the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva, he emphasized that far too many of those in need were children, and that 18 million people were acutely food insecure.
The spread of the conflict between Sudan’s armed forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to areas such as Gezira state, the country’s breadbasket, has prompted warnings of famine. “If we start seeing famine in Sudan to add to the violence, displacement and lack of a political horizon, then I think we can all agree we have no humanity in us that would allow this to happen,” Mr. Griffiths said.
Two in three people in Sudan lack access to healthcare and approximately 19 million children are out of school.
To provide humanitarian assistance inside Sudan, OCHA needs $2.7 billion to help 14.7 million people.
For all those who’ve fled the country, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) requested an additional $1.4 billion to support 2.7 million people displaced in five countries bordering Sudan whose resources are spent.
Last year appeal to provide aid to civilians in Sudan was funded up to 38 per cent.
At a press conference in Geneva, UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi described a recent meeting with displaced families in Sudan and Ethiopia and warned of the regional implications of ignoring the crisis, as people who have already fled Sudan now aim for Libya, Tunisia and then Europe. “I have warned literally European countries that if the current neglect of this crisis continues, we will see secondary movements,” Mr. Grandi added.
Sudan’s middle class has been largely impacted by the urban devastation, people that from one day to the other had their lives upended. Although they are eager to go back home and resume their activities, people are becoming more and more wary, the High Commissioner for Refugees said: “When you ask people, ‘Would you go back if there was a ceasefire?’, they think carefully about the answer. ‘We would have to be convinced that there is a real peace and that the militia is not going to come into our house and kick us out again.’ The message that I passed and will continue to pass to the two leaderships (of Sudan) is, ‘You're losing your own people. What's the purpose of fighting if you don't have people to rule?’”
The conflict is estimated to have killed more than 13,000 people and over 10 million people have been displaced. Sudan’s rival militias shared power after longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled in a popular uprising in 2019. Conflict erupted last April after a power struggle developed between the two military factions amid a faltering transition towards elections and civilian-led government. The fighting has continued to escalate despite international efforts to reach a ceasefire.
Ends
Teleprompter
very warm. Welcome.
Thank you for joining us here at the UN office in Geneva for this press conference
with Mr Martin Griffiths,
the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian
Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator,
and Mr Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees.
Now they're coming here to speak with you following a meeting they had this morning
on a joint launch of the Sudan Humanitarian Needs and Response
Plan in Sudan Regional Refugee response plan for this year 2024.
We'll start off immediately with, uh,
Mr Griffiths with some opening remarks and then Mr Grandi
immediately afterwards and then to you for your questions.
Thank you,
Martin.
Is that it? Am I on now? Yeah.
Yeah, great.
Like this.
I want to just say
a
few brief things.
Firstly, the some of the
the big figures
Filippo and I are launching today. As you know,
both the
humanitarian response plan for inside Sudan
and Filippo leading the regional response plan for
the neighbouring countries affected by the conflict.
And I'm speaking about inside Sudan and that's
and I limit my remarks to inside Sudan.
We're about to hit a 10 month
mark within a week. I think of the war.
Sudan has
hugely lost media attention.
Um, and this has been
a
very, very difficult indeed. Philip will speak.
I know about his recent visit to Sudan.
It very, very difficult to get attention to Sudan, which
in my view,
is a place of as great a suffering as
anywhere in the world today.
It's simply
also a threat to the stability of the wider region,
not just the immediate region but beyond.
And the
lack of access for us
is very, very considerable. So
we're trying to reach. We have a plan for 2.7 billion
dollars for this year, 2024. Last year we were about
40 per cent funded.
We hope to do better this year.
We're trying to help 17.4 million people
with these two plans.
The one that I'm responsible for. Um
also has half half of the population.
25 million people need assistance and half of them are Children.
So it's extraordinarily grave.
It's a place where,
as Philip Powell knows first hand from his recent visit,
there has been no schooling for kids since this last 910 months,
hospitals have been destroyed.
There's been an epidemic of attacks on health institutions,
looting many of your warehouses
by the parties.
But I want to make
three points really and then stop
number one,
as we have been hearing in the meeting that we just come from.
Of course, the solution
to these many, many problems and
you have all the details in the briefing packs
is peace.
Of course it is.
And of course we are seeing no progress towards peace
in these 10 months
and it's not the only place we see no progress towards peace.
But it's one which is particularly striking
because of the geographical strategic importance of Sudan
within that part of the world within Africa.
I once attended
a meeting. This was back in July in
Addis,
but it didn't lead to anything
been. Meetings of the neighbours, as you know,
has been to all the neighbouring countries.
But the lack of political diplomacy of any
concerted effort to bring peace is a striking feature
of the war in Sudan. Number two.
This is a war decided by
two generals
who decided to resolve the differences in a process of transition. How
not by proceeding with an agreed plan for transition.
But by deciding, let's just go to war,
let's let's do killing instead of talking.
And the the this theme of reaching for the gun
first, a war as the first instrument of choice to resolve differences.
Nowhere is this more clear
than Sudan. It's clear in other
places as well.
Gaza, of course. Ukraine certainly, and elsewhere.
But Sudan is a very clear example of it.
Second point,
the heroism of civil society.
I had the opportunity to meet in New York last week with about
15 to 20 representatives from across the country
who ran emergency rooms. Emergency rooms are, as you know, the neighbourhood
places for aid for
aid.
These people never left
Khartoum
never left
Darfur
and they went for a visit to brief people and they're going straight back.
They will be there already back in these places,
which are a place of hell.
And the courage of these people was striking and
two things I'd like to mention about number one.
I asked them if they still felt that they were
Sudanese,
given the break up of that country, and they looked at me with shock, actually,
and they said,
of course, We're Sudanese,
We absolutely are Sudanese. We do not distinguish between whether we're in
Khartoum
or South koan
or
Darfur.
We are definitely Sudanese,
but there's no doubt that identity is under threat. The second thing
is, was that they absolutely refused, avoided, weren't interested in
discussing
the politics of the war.
They were absolutely, ruthlessly focused on being
neutral humanitarian aid workers helping their own neighbourhoods.
They were utter professionals as well as brave,
which I found very striking and actually quite unusual.
And then my final point
is on humanitarian access. We were involved in the first Jeddah process.
There was, I think, a seven day pause. The only one
really happened.
It was
very helpful actually. At the time we managed to get a lot of movement
of humanitarian
supplies through to places like
Khartoum and others.
But that was many, many, many, many months ago. J, a
2.0
lasted about five days
in
this second
Jeda
O,
and the UN has the privilege
of being the mediator between the two sides negotiating on access.
And I have been in touch in the last couple of weeks with both generals
Burhan
and
Ahmeti,
to get them to
follow up their commitments. The so called Jeddah declarations.
You remember that they all signed
to declare their commitment to international humanitarian
law and helping us on access.
There was a plan to actually have such a meeting here in Switzerland.
Who cares where it is? Frankly,
they both said that they would attend
and I'm still waiting.
I'm still waiting
to see when that happens.
It is essential that these in the
in the immediate term
that we have access to empowered representatives of the two militaries so
that we can negotiate access so that we can make convoys move
and access to people that we can't reach
and supplies to people who need them.
And that leaves me to the last point, of course,
which is the first point which is peace.
There's nothing. There's nothing so important
anywhere
in
any of our places that we work as peace.
But peace in Sudan seems to be so elusive
so far
away
from the reality of the people who have been displaced,
who are
lacking
the
slightest of resources
but who still are brave enough to consider themselves Sudanese people,
patriots of that country,
God bless,
thank you,
Mr
G.
I'll just build on what Martin said,
especially on your second point on civil society. And
I agree. I'm just back from a few days in Sudan myself,
Port Sudan, casal at the east of the country that, as far as I could go security wise.
But I have to say our people are also in other places,
although very complicated to work,
because they have to move constantly according to this very shifting
front lines. Remember, this is not a straight front line.
This is a very fragmented front line in
the
middle, in the midst of which you have a lot of different factions, mini factions,
sub factions.
So, for example, for our colleagues who are doing cross border
into
Darfur,
it's a constant process of negotiations
to access places where people need help.
So it's complicated and
and difficult.
But
the key point here is
Sudan is a country that has gone through a lot
of trouble in the past 50 years or since independence,
essentially
including, by the way, a separation into two countries.
But its civil society has always been very resilient. It's middle class.
This is the point for me, was the most striking. Knowing Sudan quite well
is to see how much the middle class has been impacted by this urban devastation in,
In in
Khartoum, in mein,
in other, smaller towns. Now Darfur.
Some of the car of fans.
And that's the people you meet that those are the displaced.
You have very vulnerable cases, of course, but you have people that
from one day to the other had to interrupt very normal
Sudanese lives. People with
you know,
government officials are not paid more
their wives, Children,
students that have stopped going to school
and everything has collapsed.
Health access, education, access,
security, their own homes that are often occupied by these fighting forces.
So it's really
an unbelievable impact on an ordinary country in a way or ordinary society.
And what all these people are telling us is, I think that, by the way, if there was,
people would be largely going back
and because they are eager to resume normal lives.
This is the message you constantly hear.
But it's also true that people are becoming more and more wary of that.
And like I said at the previous meeting, when you ask people,
would you go back if there was a ceasefire,
they think carefully about the answer and said We would have to be convinced
that there is real peace and that they are.
You know that the militia is not going to come into our house and kick us out again.
So the message that I passed to the leadership and we will continue
to pass to two leaderships is really you are losing your own people.
What's the purpose of fighting
then you don't have people to rule
and if this is about power sharing and control, it's pretty absurd.
Besides being a pretty
devastating and murderous fight.
Otherwise, you know you have all the information you know, the destruction,
the displacement massive
together with Syria and Ukraine.
This is one of the three big ones in
terms of displacement and humanitarian impact separations of families.
The displacement, as I said earlier,
is also very complex because you have straightforward displacement of Sudanese,
some inside some one and one
0.1 million Sudanese outside.
But you have a lot of refugees that lived in Sudan.
Sudan hosted well over a million people before the war,
many of whom are now displaced themselves and many of whom have to go back
in a precipitous manner to their own countries, especially the South Sudanese.
And those countries are not yet ready to receive such big numbers.
The neighbouring countries are all very fragile. South Sudan, Chad,
Ethiopia, these are big ones and then you have Egypt caught between Gaza and Sudan.
So it's a very it's also about stability in the region that this is quite worrying.
It is about
the fact that and I am very confident in saying this.
We are already seeing people fleeing Sudan, especially along certain routes
from east Sudan
and from
Chad itself, where there are many of them
towards Libya, Tunisia and then towards Europe. So
I have warned literally European countries in particular that if the current
neglect of this crisis continues, we will see secondary movements as we call them.
You know, in
all this
eight years I have been very prudent in making this argument
because I do not think there is always an automatic
correlation but here I am confident I can make it.
There will be more movements because
in Sudan access is patchy and assistance is limited In neighbouring countries,
assistance is limited,
although they have been extremely generous in getting people in.
But if you cannot help people there sufficiently with 3840 42% funding,
we cannot do everything that we should be doing.
So really, I hope this 401
billion appeal is going to be better responded than last year.
I have one last point to make. There is another complication here, as we all know,
which is that
we are not facilitated
in our operation.
In our humanitarian operation, there is an enormous superstructure of visa,
slow visa approval, customs clearance that takes ages,
travel permit all the ways that
at central but in particular at local level,
authorities have to really slow it down.
Frankly speaking, they are being used.
I have passed a strong appeal and I have to say at least at the Port Sudan level,
I got positive responses that they are trying to set up
this one stop shop to get everything cleared more rapidly.
But it is important to say it to say that it is still an obstacle,
and it will
also discourage donors and contributions if that is not
resolved and by the way that includes you people.
I made a strong point to the authorities that I wanted to travel with international
media because otherwise we can't make this crisis as known as we would like.
I received positive replies that they will
allow international media to travel with us.
I am going to try again soon. Thank you.
No,
thanks.
Thanks to you both very much.
I appreciate we don't have a lot of times for question and answer,
but we'll start off with Gabriella Reuters,
and then we'll take a few questions online.
Gabby,
thank you very much.
Um, just just a question to Mr Griffiths is, if possible,
You mentioned during the launch this morning
that, uh, you had attempted to get the warring parties to come to Geneva
to secure access.
I'm just wondering, um,
what those efforts have consisted in and, uh,
your hopes about this actually happening.
And if I can squeeze in the second quick question,
uh, it was the appeal was
and half funded last year.
what are your hopes? What? What can be different? Uh, this time around, Um What?
What will make it better this time? Thank you.
Two good questions just a quick answer to the second one.
I think picks up picks up on Filippo's last point,
which is international attention.
There is a direct correlation, obviously,
between international attention created by yourselves.
That's why we are your servants
and always want to be with you wherever we go.
Come with me on my next holiday if you wouldn't mind
and funding
there's a direct relationship.
It
is, however, true that there is limited amounts of money.
Gaza is taking up a whole lot more,
a
new one
and so forth. Ukraine is you just come back from Ukraine.
That's not going away. So
we will be doing our best. I'm not an optimist, actually.
But in fact
the first priority is access,
and then we'll be able to use the money that we've got.
And that goes to your first question.
So I spoke to the two generals.
I
think I did.
I
was told I was speaking to
the two generals at the time.
And who am I to question
the words of others?
And I said
we need to convene the humanitarian forum, which is, as you know,
the name simply for empowered
representatives of the two militaries
to come together virtually or physically, ideally physically
like in the Jedi One
process,
but this time run by us,
not by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US.
This time it's the UN will be the mediator
to discuss precise access, planning
to discuss movements and so forth.
They both said yes
that they would be happy to come.
In fact, they said to Switzerland
because
for reasons anyway, they said Yes, we'll come
into Switz, Switzerland. I said, I don't mind where you go.
I mean, we'll go wherever you want to go,
but ideally face to face to begin with
and I'm still waiting for a confirmation
of when and where they will come.
And as we have heard in the
earlier meeting,
I think the Sudanese ambassador was talking about the fact that
the RSF has still not
fulfilled its
apparent promise
to leave civilian structures
that was negotiated under Jed I
and that this is
given as a reason for not reconvening and agenda to.
Of course, I disagree with this
because
I have never been in a mediation where
people have done everything that they promised ever
exactly
otherwise. So
we need them to come together to get moved.
We need them to come together to remind them that they made those declarations
which were very, very clear.
And if we could get that access,
we could, I think,
with
UNHCR
and others in the lead,
we could perform,
um, some humanitarian miracles because of the courage
and the presence and the relentless efforts of the
front line deliverers
the Sudanese,
the NGO S.
Thank you very much.
Um, we'll take a question, maybe front row Jamie from Associated Press.
And I know that Mr Grande, you need to leave soon, but let's, uh
OK, good. Very good. Uh, Jamie, over to you.
Thank you. Rolando.
Thank you for coming to see us.
Um, I, I wanted to just follow up.
Um, based on your experience, um,
we we obviously see that there's not a lot
of humanitarian funding going around at all right now.
Um, and and the the the the the well is is running drier. Let's say
so.
Um, I guess I'm just wondering, in your experience, when you do have access,
when you do get access,
does that serve
as an impetus to get more funding in other words or the fact that
you're blocking is is is is a way to you're facing these blockages,
uh, of access,
that that's a better calling card to get donors to step
up just in in your vast experience in these situations.
Yes, Jim, if you don't mind, I'll pick on this.
I don't know if Martin
wants,
but I think
the reason why there is insufficient funding is not only
the obstacles and the limited access,
but we know the general context.
There is a debate going on in Washington as we speak on the supplemental,
which includes a
hefty allocation for humanitarian funding,
part of which could be used in a crisis like this.
But everything is stuck for a completely different reason.
I don't need to tell you that.
So there is that background,
but it is also true, and that was my strong message in Sudan to the militaries
that if they because they are asking for more assistance,
that if those obstacles were lifted,
and in particular
if we could have more access cross line, for example,
that's now the key because some cross border is happening.
But cross line is very difficult.
If we could do that.
I
think that would trigger
more. There would be more goodwill because donors
also constrained by funding.
They
have to choose and they will say, Well, if they cannot deliver there,
let's give it to a place where they can deliver.
So that argument exists as well. But let me repeat. It is not the only one.
Scarcity of humanitarian
funding is a dramatic problem, in my opinion, in a situation in which our needs,
we have every eight months,
a major humanitarian crisis and the funding is stuck
at levels of two or three years ago,
frankly, if at all,
if not going backwards.
So I think that the reasons are not only that, but that would facilitate
freeing up at least some of the It's not only that also, what we can do,
even with the funding that we have,
would increase exponentially if we could have more access.
As you said earlier,
OK, we'll take, uh, maybe in the back we have Mousa Almain
and then we'll go online afterwards and then we'll come back to the room. Go ahead,
Maxi.
I'm English.
Well, I'm not, I'm British,
so of course I don't understand a word that you said
because you used a foreign language.
Let me try.
Sudan is not the only place we see an absence of political diplomacy.
we're still waiting and hoping for a UN envoy
for Myanmar,
for example,
as a means of kick start political diplomacy,
the Gaza War and its effect, as you know, for example, in Yemen and the Red Sea
taken political diplomacy backwards.
But it is striking
that in Sudan
the absence of political diplomacy
which has involved
essentially,
you know,
arguments between member states as to who should be
in which group who should be present is it
is
plus a U,
is it who should lead Sudanese, have objections to
one of the leaders from the
group and so on and so forth.
So what we've seen is argument about who's going to sit around the table
before we even get to the issue. So that's one of the problems on the political front.
The second one is,
I think, is very,
I think is hugely important. Politically
speaking as a former mediator is the absence of civilians.
It's all very well for generals to start a war, but you need civilians,
Civil society, as
was talking about
to help end it.
And the absence of
just
perhaps even disorganised discussions
between civilian groups and military groups would
make would be a huge step forward.
It would start giving people hope,
and there isn't any hope at the moment, without
second question was about pledges.
I
don't think we had.
Yes, we did hear some pledges, didn't we? EU and Finland and so forth,
but we weren't expecting to hear
a
huge amount.
It will come in
and we will find out over the next few weeks.
This is more of a launch of a plan.
Last year we did a pledging conference as well, didn't we
more than more than one
and no doubt we have to do that this year as well.
But
let's be very clear.
In every single humanitarian crisis across the world,
the absence of a political
diplomacy or a mediation process of a peace process
always makes conditions more difficult for the humanitarians.
In every single country that I've come across where you see that,
can I add one point to this?
And this is why also,
unfortunately, I should say
we resort to humanitarian diplomacy.
What Martin just described about
trying to convene the two leaders here or wherever
to talk about at least access is a substitute
for what doesn't happen, which is political diplomacy. I mean,
you know, President Chise
here in Geneva last year asked me
to
establish dialogue between Rwanda and Congo on refugee issues.
You know,
try to do that in the absence of any political progress in that conflict.
And we know the list is long Myanmar. You were there. It's always the same.
So I think it's good we are not giving up. I think that's the key issue.
The humanitarians are not giving up, but in an increasing
emptiness of political initiatives, which makes it very difficult.
Yes, it was striking in that last meeting that
people, some of the representatives of member states, pointed to me
of all people
to say, Why don't you? You're an under Secretary General, the United Nations.
Why didn't you start getting involved in doing some politics? Well, you know
I'm not on that side of the house.
I'm on the nice side of the house, not the black side of the UN,
And I try to be quite careful not to poach too much,
but
we have many discussions in the UN in New York, about Sudan and elsewhere.
And in all of the discussions that I've been involved in, I'm sure the same for you.
It's It's all about humanitarian. And the world also uses that,
you know, humanitarian
access and delivery of aid
is seen often as a placebo.
And it's not a placebo. It's not a replacement for peace.
Gaza has been all about all about humanitarian aid, hasn't it? Well, that's
fine. And well,
but it's not. It's not the same. And I come from a mediation background.
I can see why people talk about humanitarian aid. There's
something to discuss.
It doesn't solve the problem of the people. Ultimately,
thank you both. OK, I appreciate we have a lot of interest, which is good.
Uh, a few more questions. Just let me know when you need to leave.
Five more minutes, OK? We'll start with Ben Louis of RT S. The front row.
Yes. I'd just like to have a little more precisions from you, Mr Griffith,
about the timeline. When did you make the proposal of
a
negotiation
here?
Hosted by the U.
since when are you waiting for the answer? And
did they mention Switzerland,
the country,
or the UN
in Geneva which happens to be
in Switzerland
within?
We've been making this proposal since Jeddah
2.0 stopped
to meet,
presumably in Jeddah.
So we've never stopped wanting to convene that group and we went through that.
I think Jeddah 2.0 lasted about 10 days or something like that
and we were moving on towards having
that meeting of empowered military representatives.
we then that stopped and there was a
hiatus because of the disagreement of the parties
they didn't want to meet.
The process that I got involved in has been the last couple of weeks.
So I had conversations with the two leaders within the last couple of weeks.
But I knew that Switzerland had offered
to be the host
of talks between the two, and that's why it was.
It is not a UN proposal to be
delighted to be here, but it's a Swiss proposal. There's a Swiss envoy
for Sudan
who was mentioned in my conversation with one of the generals,
one of the two generals
they'd met recently in Rwanda
and the offer had been made
and accepted.
And so, as I say, I had positive responses from both
sides and
and then the phone went silent.
And that's now been about 10 days now. What we're trying to do
because of course, we're not giving up
is to have at least begin with a virtual call
mediated by the humanitarian co ordinator Clementine,
who is based in Port Sudan,
former
UNHCR
colleague,
to
have her begin
the process at least virtually to get it going.
I'm keen to be part of a face to face
because I know from we all know from our direct experience that
nothing quite substitutes for a face to face discussion.
And so we're still going to push for that.
Even if we have a virtual one
next week. Say, you know,
as a as a as a as a as a as a first step,
thank you very much. We will just go online for one.
Perhaps one last question and yes, of
France press
and yes, over to you.
Yes. Hi, everybody. Uh, thank you for taking my question.
This question would be for, uh, mr uh, Griffiths
on the lack of access. I would like you to to explain better that,
Um is it a problem that, uh, you you have the green light, but you don't have, uh,
security conditions,
uh, for the humanitarian work?
Or is it that you you don't even have, uh,
the the green lights for the parties to to do your, uh,
your job If if you could explain better
and just to follow up on, um S
question,
Um, did you say that you get, uh, some, uh, first approval, uh,
of of your proposal to to make the generals uh uh, meet?
uh, was it a confirmation that they would come, uh, themselves or, uh,
representatives?
Thank you.
Thank you. Representatives empowered. I was asking for empowered
representatives, people who had the authority to take decisions,
obviously in consultation with their leaderships
about specific humanitarian operations.
And I think the answer to your first question if I understood it rightly
was about,
What goes on is discussions about We need to move a convoy from a to B.
We need to move into across the line
in
Khartoum
between RSF and Sud's armed forces areas, a
convoy of trucks 48 trucks will want to move on Wednesday morning or whatever.
Whatever, whatever.
And we need your assurances that this will be allowed. And now that you are on notice
of this humanitarian plan,
a lot of discussion
as to whether that was right.
We would bring in the front line, deliverers the emergency room,
people who would be involved, of course, in the actual distribution
in
Khartoum or Darfur
or wherever.
Medani
also now
and then the plan would go ahead
without that.
Without those assurances.
You can't move because there's far too much
experience
of convoys being looted,
warehouses being bombed,
aid workers being killed
without the assurances of the warring parties that
they would allow such and such to happen.
And
this is standard practise.
We do this all over the world. We do this in every single conflict.
It's absolutely normal access negotiation
Orchard does. It's part of our core business,
and in this case it is simply for those two
generals who decided
that they wanted to resolve their difference through violence
to agree to at least allow, as Philippo said, so
graphically
allow
their people
to survive by virtue of providing some opportunity
for humanitarian aid to go through.
And so, for example, it could be a convoy starts in port.
Sudan goes right across the country to Darfur.
It could be
permission agreement to enter into Khartoum
and start operating there. MSF has a hospital, I think, still operating
in
Khartoum.
MSF bravest people in the world.
And for us to resupply, we would need this kind of permission.
It's standard,
but
they're not doing it. And of course they're not doing it because
they are full of the
They're in full war like mode. They see war as the current phase, not
occasional pauses.
God knows we've seen
the issue of pauses in the news in the Gaza case
and the importance and difficulties of that.
So we're not proceeding yet anything like where we'd like to be.
We know who the two sides are. Obviously, it's not a mystery.
We know that they can decide
and empower.
We know that if they do,
we'll have to work with their lower level commanders right down to the local level.
We know all that. We've done all that before,
but we need to start by having them
have it at the highest level
and then work down through and then let the convoy go.
If you can indulge us a couple more minutes, Mr Griffiths,
we have two more questions.
We will take first Isabel from the Spanish Food Agency.
Then we'll go online to Catherine from Franz
Isabel.
Thank you very much. Um, just I.
I would like to know how How many people do you
think you are missing with all these red tape problems,
access problems in in
in in Sudan
and people that really need your aid for surviving
And secondly, on this meeting that is likely to happen sometime.
It would be a meeting focused on humanitarian issues only. Or it could be a
peace
talk
the beginning of a peace
process.
Well, this very much mirrors what
it would be purely humanitarian.
The Jeddah process where you have the US and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as you know,
being the co organisers
and with some other member states, I think, as observers
as
one of its potential still not actual
activities
negotiating ceasefires.
We decided
that what we would focus on
was simply the provision of humanitarian assistance, humanitarian access,
and that's a different part of Jeddah and that's run by
O.
That's run by us.
That's why we are the ones making the calls to the generals and
it was a negotiation that we had with the organisers of Jeddah,
those two countries to allow the UN to play that role because we did not play that role
in Jeda one
Jeda one was
that humanitarian access was negotiated by
us and Saudi Arabia with the two parties
and I said That's my job
and they agreed eventually
we're still waiting for the actual meeting to happen
but you're right in a sense. As Philippo said,
it's also possibly
potentially the only time that we will be able to get the parties together
and as a mediator
getting people together
that really at almost any level is a first step towards a process.
So
humanitarian diplomacy, as Philippo was saying,
has become a
substitute
for political activity.
People are more inclined to meet for humanitarian purposes
than for political because it is doing good,
it's
everybody can agree. This
is
done
for the best of reasons, the best of motives and to help people
and humanitarian diplomacy. Filippo and I were very involved in Syria
after the earthquake a
year ago,
a year ago, just
yesterday, yesterday
in
working with President Assad and others to
do provide progress towards return of refugees.
So we used humanitarian diplomacy and it was
mingled with political diplomacy by the Arab League,
of course, which eventually allowed
President Assad to rejoin.
So that's I think, the answer. The question. There were two questions. I
think
how many people? 25,000,025 I'm reading from this.
Half of the population of Sudan needs humanitarian assistance. 25 million people,
far too many of them Children
18 million people
are
quote unquote acutely food Insecure
has been issuing warnings that the failure of the harvest
failure of the agricultural cycle because of
the spread of the war risks increasing the number of food insecure people.
But 18 million are acutely food insecure, which is
10 million
more
than last year.
so it's,
you know, the vectors are going all in the wrong direction
if we start
seeing and
we've seen it a bit in Gaza,
if we start seeing
potential famine
because that's what this is pointing towards these numbers.
If we start seeing potential famine as a result of the failure of people can't plant.
People can't harvest. People
have
no access to food. There's also
a locust plague just adding to the excitement of events. If we start seeing famine
in Sudan
and it won't be the first time we've seen family in Sudan
to add to
this violence and displacement
and lack of access and lack of a political horizon,
then
I
I think we can all agree we have no humanity
in us that would allow this to happen.
We cannot cannot allow a
place like Sudan
to suffer all these scourges at once.
Thank you very much, Mr Griffiths. I know you're being very generous with your time.
We do have two hands still up online if you can give us maybe five more minutes,
maybe
K
me
as well. But, Catherine, you've been waiting patiently for Franz FKK over to you.
Thank you so much. Uh, for taking my question. I'd like to go back to the field.
Um, as we know that there are, uh, 17.4 million people targeted.
Uh, could you give us more details about the regions where these people are?
Are the regions situated at the borders.
And as you spoke a lot about difficulty of access,
could you tell us which region is the most difficult to ACC
access for? Humanitarian help? Thank you.
Well, we haven't been to Khartoum
since
October.
As a system, MSF is there
to its huge credit.
But we have not been providing aid into
since October, for example.
But the
answer to
the
first part of your question is that
almost the entire country is now covered by the spread of the war. It's viral.
It's increased in South
Coran,
I was been told the other day by a
representative from the Nuba Mountains, which is
which is thought to be in a place of peace.
It's now receiving huge numbers of refugees in for safety from other parts of Sudan.
Darfur.
We go in and out from Chad,
but we have very little access within Darfur, and it's very dangerous.
Wadi
Medina
was the jump off point. As you know, for
Khartoum,
it's now been overtaken by war.
Filippo's journey from Port Sudan to south Sudan, which is his plan. I think
when he went to Sudan the other day,
he couldn't.
He wasn't allowed to make it because it was too dangerous to go across that
across through
Sudan, down
to south Sudan.
So there is almost no part of Sudan is untouched even in the very far north
of Sudan. We see, of course, people moving, displaced, trying to get into Egypt
and so forth. So there is nowhere where you can say there is a place of peace and quiet
in Sudan,
I
think, Uh, thank you very much, Mr Gryphon. I am apologies for those I know Kasmira
and and Laurent. I know you still have questions.
Maybe you can liaise with the Jens afterwards, but
we'll have to stop it here.
I'd like to thank you very much for your for your time and for your focus.
And of course, your colleagues
keep the spotlight bright on Sudan. Thank you so very much for joining us here,
please. Absolutely, Absolutely.
It's about Gaza and
just about Gaza.
We're hearing some potentially positive news. Aren't we about Gaza?
It's been reported that
there may be
the beginning of a breakthrough in the
efforts mediated by Qatar
and the United States
and Egypt
with Israel
and Hamas
a
potential breakthrough of a
long period
of pause
to allow hostages out and Palestinian
prisoners out,
and then a period of
so called calm
which could lead to an end to the war. Now
I don't want to be. I have no idea. I have no inside inside insights into this.
But it is a graphic difference from Sudan,
isn't
it? In Gaza,
we have intense efforts
by the international community.
Secretary Blinken is there on his. What is it, sixth or seventh visit?
Qatar is playing an extraordinary role
of mediation.
Gaza has at least got attention and with attention it
has international efforts to get to a peace process.
So it provides us with a clear contrast,
a clear distinction
with Sudan,
and that's partly because you're not there.
You
know,
we aren't able to get media into Sudan.
He failed to do so when he went there
last time.
I should be going to sit down myself to
Darfur in the next few weeks,
hopefully taking media.
But
it's
an interesting reflection on our world where we see
huge efforts and thank God for that.
I'm not decrying it. I'm celebrating the huge efforts that are made for Gaza
and the attention being paid to Gaza,
while at the same time Sudan is completely in the shadows,
where we're still arguing about who's actually going to do the mediation,
that there's no justice
in the world
where you see such contrasts,
where suffering
is allowed to continue in one place
while it is at least beginning to be addressed in another.
Thank you very much.
Thanks to you, Mr Griffiths.
Thank you for joining us all.