MINISTER FOR FOREIGN Affairs Micheál Martin has pledged to raise the ongoing civil war and humanitarian crisis in Sudan with his European counterparts when he returns from his East Africa trip this week.
The Tánaiste said the devastating conflict, which has displaced more than 10m people and left thousands dead, could almost be termed the “forgotten crisis” and needs to be elevated to the global stage.
The conflict was a key discussion with government officials during his visits to both Kenya and Ethiopia.
The civil war in Sudan broke out in April 2023 between two warring factions, the Sudan Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces, and currently shows no signs of abating.
It was stressed to the Tánaiste by regional experts in Kenya that they believe the European Union’s response to the conflict has not been adequate.
He told the media that these experts had “huge concerns” about the European Union’s response to the ongoing violence and huge displacement of people.
Speaking to reporters while in Nairobi the Tánaiste said:
Everybody I’ve met is really worried about the consequences on the people of Sudan in terms of millions of people displaced.
“And it’s something I intend to raise back at the European Foreign Affairs Council meetings.
“We do need to elevate the dire situation in Sudan to a global level in terms of global consciousness and awareness of the disaster unfolding on the Sudanese people and the need to bring these two factions to heed.”
He continued:
In many ways, Sudan in terms of the Western consciousness just isn’t there at the moment.
“I don’t want to use the term but it could nearly be termed the forgotten crisis.
“The scale of it is enormous. The attacks on civilians, and women in particular, are shocking. And the international community does need to rally the focus on getting ceasefires going as quickly as we possibly can.”
Martin was told that the same level of outrage that exists about Ukraine and Gaza is “just not there” for Sudan.
He added that part of the reason Sudan is not in receipt of the same level of international outrage is because media is prevented from reporting on the ground.
“The world should be more seized on it than it is, was the point they were making,” Martin said.
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Sudan has the highest number of internally displaced people recorded for a single country since records began in 2008.
Since the conflict erupted in April last year, violence against women has continued to grow while access to aid has been hugely diminished.
Meanwhile, diseases like cholera, malaria and meningitis have continued to spread.
A recent UN-backed report said nearly 26 million people, or slightly more than half of the population, were facing high levels of “acute food insecurity”.
Humanitarian agencies say that the difficulty of obtaining data on the ground has prevented famine from being officially declared in Sudan.
Includes reporting from AFP.
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