'World needs to wake up': War, famine ravage Sudan, as world 'sits & waits for people to make peace'

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00:00Well, let's go from Jerusalem and look at the situation in Sudan right now, often called

00:04the Forgotten War, and a message from the Norwegian Refugee Council, its General Secretary

00:10Jan Egeland, saying to European leaders, if you want the same refugee crisis that happened

00:17on the shores in 2015 to happen again, coming from Sudan, then pay attention to what's going

00:23on, because this is a civil war, he said, unlike any other. In terms of humanitarian

00:28displacement crisis, it is the biggest in the world. Well, the Norwegian Refugee Agency,

00:34many of its staff have spent the past few days in the country, back and forth, in fact,

00:39more than 14 million people displaced there, the country's counting down to famine. According

00:43to Jan Egeland, the conflict began 19 months ago between the army and the paramilitary

00:48group, the Rapid Support Force. It was a fight for power between the leaders of both groups.

00:53It's more complex now with other countries involved, taking different sides, and 26 million

00:59people suffering from acute hunger. We're going to speak to Mathilde Vu in a moment,

01:04the Sudan advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council. First, let's hear from what's

01:09going on inside Sudan. Here's Shirley Sitbon.

01:16The crisis has hit all of Sudan. This Norwegian humanitarian worker has shared footage from

01:23Port Sudan, an area easy to access in the east.

01:28We're now in the school grounds, and there are 3,700 people here, and conditions are

01:35just terrible, really.

01:38He then travelled to the opposite side of the country to show that here, too, people

01:43are facing violence and hunger.

01:46Famine is Darfur, Jenina, from where hundreds of thousands fled up this road during the

01:56atrocities that started one and a half years ago and is continuing to this day.

02:02A reference to the internal war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary group, the Rapid

02:08Support Forces. According to the UN, both sides have been using hunger as a weapon of

02:15war.

02:16The RSF have attacked humanitarian convoys. The army is accused of slowing down aid with

02:23red tape. Humanitarian agencies have alerted repeatedly about this crisis, where 25 million

02:30lives are at stake. They've urged for pressure to be applied on both warring sides, so they

02:37would allow in food and aid, and so they would end the violence. But NGOs say world powers

02:43have been focusing on other wars, Ukraine and Russia, Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, and

02:49neglecting Sudan.

02:53Let's cross to Port Sudan. Let's bring in Mathilde Vu, who's the Sudan advocacy manager

02:57of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Great to have you on the programme tonight, Mathilde.

03:02First of all, we were hearing from your boss, Jan Egeland. Just tell me about your recent

03:07trip. Clearly, you're still in Port Sudan. Just tell me what it's like, what you've seen

03:12there, and just describe your time for me.

03:15Sure. I mean, I think Jan explained it very well. It's a catastrophe. It's actually the

03:21largest displacement crisis in the world. It's one of the largest hunger crises in the

03:26world. Just outside of my office right now, like 10 minutes away, there are people who

03:30are living in tents. There are people who are only surviving on one meal a day. Children,

03:3617 million children actually across Sudan haven't set a foot in a school for the past

03:4118 months. And then on the other side of the country, in Darfur, this is where we are seeing

03:48horrible living condition, high level of hunger, people surviving on barely nothing in order

03:55to eat, less than a meal a day sometimes, children with malnutrition, and very, very

04:01little assistance coming to reach them.

04:05When you try to bring in aid, and other charities do the same, it's in San Frontierre, and you're

04:10trying to navigate through parts of the conflict to get people most in need, as they often

04:14are, closer to where the front lines are. How difficult is that? How much food is getting

04:20to the people in terms of, you know, are we talking about a drop in the ocean of stuff

04:23that is being brought into the country? To what scale are people getting what they need?

04:30It's a drop in the ocean. Actually, I would even say that humanitarian assistance right

04:35now is not saving lives. We're just really delaying death. This is how bad the situation

04:41is. There's a few reasons for that. The first one is the resources. Only half of the humanitarian

04:48response is being funded, and we are at the end of the year. What this means is that my

04:53team on the ground have to make this terrible choice of, like, trying to find who is the

04:58most vulnerable of the most vulnerable. But everybody needs assistance. So assistance

05:04and funding is really not there to the level that is needed. And then second, it's the

05:09humanitarian access. As you said in your introduction, the warring parties are just not creating an

05:14enabling environment for us to help people in time, in time to save them. Like, we're

05:19past the time of preventing famine, you know? Like, the famine is already there. On the

05:24other side of the country, you have children dying of hunger, because we were not able

05:29to help, because the warring parties are not creating this space for us. And then the

05:34last thing is logistics. You know, the entire country has been destroyed. What you're seeing

05:39on the ground is that sometimes trucks have to cross for months, you know, in order to

05:45arrive to a place because, you know, the roads are broken, the floods have, like, destroyed

05:51the roads, and then the infrastructure is not there. So it's really, we're not there.

05:56We're not there at all.

05:58And just physically being there, it's very hard. One of the reasons it's often called

06:02the forgotten war, which has kind of become a cliche in itself now, hasn't it? Because

06:06it was forgotten months ago, yet it's still referred to as the same thing. And it's not

06:09remembered in any better way, is the fact that it's so difficult to get access, as you

06:15said, including for journalists, because of a lack of any real engagement from either

06:19side to allow journalists in, to report safely under the times that we do get in. It is incredibly

06:26difficult, hostile terrain. For you being there, just talk to us about trying to travel,

06:30who you can deal with in terms of whether it's through the Sudanese army and General

06:35Burhan, whether it's General Hometi and the Rapid Support Force, how many checkpoints

06:39you're having to go through to go to the east of the country or to try to get to Darfur,

06:43that everyday business of trying to do your work.

06:47So just one note on the journalists, because you rate here a very good point. Journalists

06:53are trying to come in and there's been more and more journalists actually managing to

06:58arrive in poor Sudan and to visit Khartoum. So the staff on their side have done a little

07:03bit of an effort in providing visas for them. On the other side, the Rapid Support Force

07:09is yet to allow any journalist to come in to Darfur and to witness what has happened.

07:14And that is really, really unacceptable. We need also the world to see this part of the

07:19country that is basically only accessible right now to humanitarian workers.

07:23Now on your question of how it is, how difficult it is to get in the country, it's very difficult.

07:28My own organization has had like visa pendings for the past four months. I have teams ready

07:33to be deployed in Khartoum and other areas of massive suffering. They're just waiting

07:38outside of the country for more than three months now. Getting the paperwork necessary

07:43to get in is complicated. And then once you're there, you obviously have to go through a

07:48lot of bureaucratic impediments in order to travel inside the country. Now getting

07:54into Darfur is a completely different story. You have to go through different countries.

08:01You have to pass through Chad in order to cross the border. And yet again, there is,

08:05as you said, checkpoints, et cetera. And you need to engage with all the warring parties

08:10in order to negotiate that access. And this access is never granted as fast as we want.

08:17You talk about the journalists now. I was listening recently to one of my former colleagues,

08:20Barbara Pletz-Usher, who was where you are now, and she was saying another issue, and

08:24I'd be interested to hear more on this, is when we try to understand what's going, it

08:28is made that much easier with eyes and ears like yours. One of the big issues just trying

08:34to survive outside of the famine is trying to imagine food and inflation at the moment.

08:38And if you try to get an idea of the Sudanese pounds, I'm right in saying it's something

08:42like two and a half thousand pounds to the dollar. Go back before the war, it was around

08:47400 Sudanese pounds to the dollar. So that gives you an idea that for those who have

08:51money just can't even afford to buy basics. Exactly. You're pointing at something very

08:57important is that the entire food insecurity in this country is not because of the lack

09:03of food. And actually, this year, there's been some harvest. There is food on the market,

09:10but the food is unaffordable. People just cannot manage to buy because the prices are

09:17just spiraling. And you have to understand as well that it's not only food that is costing.

09:22It's also shelter. It's also home. When you have 11 million people displaced in the country,

09:28you can imagine that people are living in terrible, terrible conditions. And the one

09:32who managed to rent a place have to go through crazy rents. So every single thing is unaffordable

09:39in this country. And so what it means as well is that it's also very difficult for a family

09:44that would be like a middle class family in Khartoum. And now they really are seeing massive

09:50destitution and deprivation compared to what they used to live before the war.

09:55When was the last time you had access? Personally, I know you've you've been to Darfur in the

09:59past material, but like you said, recently, it's been almost impossible. But I believe

10:04Jan Egeland was able to go there, was he, in recent days?

10:08Yeah, thankfully humanitarian organizations are able to go, especially NGOs. We are still

10:14waiting for the UN to basically redeploy international staff into Darfur. And at the

10:19moment, it's not the case. We are basically waiting for trucks to be accompanied with

10:26people so that there is actually eyes on the ground in order to make sure that the food is

10:30arriving to the right hands. So it is difficult. We're doing it as at a certain cost. We're

10:36taking risks by doing so. And we really need more humanitarian organization to be in Darfur,

10:43but also in other places of Sudan, you know, in the Kordofan in the south of the country.

10:48There is barely any humanitarian actor at the moment, because the warring parties are not

10:53letting us in.

10:54We've got about a minute to the end of the program. But I really want to hear your

10:59thoughts on this. It's very hard to explain probably in a minute. But what more do you

11:01think the international community could and should be doing, particularly Europe? And I

11:05mentioned that quote from Jan Egeland about if you want to avoid a refugee crisis like

11:092015, you really need to do more than is being done right now.

11:13No, absolutely. The world needs to wake up. That's the first thing. As you said, it's 18

11:18months of neglect. It's a country that is collapsing, really, and everybody is denying

11:25that there is an issue. This is one. Second is you can't wait for a ceasefire to act.

11:30There needs to be enough diplomatic pressure at the highest level being put on the warring

11:36parties so that at least, you know, people are not dying of hunger. You know, if you

11:42can't stop the weapons, at least make sure that people are fed. And this is not even

11:46the case at the moment. The international community is just sitting and waiting for

11:50people to make peace. This is not enough.

11:52Mathilde, great to talk to you. Thank you for sparing the time to talk to us here on

11:56French Relief. Mathilde Vu from Norwegian Refugee Council in Port Sudan.

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