00:00Let's bring in someone who's just back from Sudan, Tom Fletcher, the UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs.
00:05Tom, thank you for being with us here on France 24.
00:08Give us a sense of the place you've left Sudan, what is happening, what are your feelings about what is
00:12happening there right now?
00:14So Sudan is the epicentre of brutality, inhumanity in the world right now.
00:18I travelled across Darfur for almost a week to get as close as I could to Al-Fasha,
00:23where so many of those complete atrocities took place, those massacres took place.
00:29And I met so many civilians who had fled that, the lucky ones who'd fled the horrors of that war.
00:35We have almost 30 million people right now in need of our support across Sudan.
00:40Darfur is bad, the Kordofans are very bad at the moment.
00:43That's where a lot of the conflict has moved.
00:45Drone strikes on that area.
00:47A lot of drone strikes.
00:48You know, 50 civilians were killed in the last two days by drones.
00:52And we've got this real problem with these new weapons.
00:5490% of everyone who was killed by drones last year was a civilian.
00:58So they're being used against the people we serve, civilians in need.
01:02They're being used against us, against our humanitarians.
01:05The basic rule of law is protect humanitarians, and yet our people are being killed in massive numbers.
01:11This is the real horror of the story, because one would expect, one would hope,
01:15that people who are there, like you, to try to help people who are basically being forced from their homes,
01:21whose lives are put at risk, would at least have the possibility of working in some kind of safety.
01:25But that's not the case.
01:26It's not the case.
01:27And we have several challenges.
01:29We have a big funding challenge.
01:30Last year, our Sudan programs were about 32% funded against what we actually needed.
01:34We've got big access challenges.
01:36It took me three days to get to Tawhila.
01:39Cross-country, 40-odd checkpoints, many demand by child soldiers, different militias.
01:45So logistically, it's very, very tough.
01:47Real security problems as well.
01:49And then when you get there, you meet the survivors, and you hear the stories of what they've been through.
01:56A woman I had the privilege of meeting, she had seen her own family killed in front of her in
02:01Al-Fasha.
02:02She'd gone next door to her neighbor's house.
02:05Everyone killed, apart from a tiny, malnourished, two-month-old baby.
02:08She'd managed to scoop up that child and carry him along the most dangerous road in the world.
02:15She'd been attacked and raped on that road by the militia.
02:19Her leg had been broken.
02:20But somehow she'd got to us.
02:22And I was able to hold that child.
02:25He held my finger.
02:27You know the way a child holds your finger.
02:29And I knew that he would survive because he'd got to us because of her courage and her humanity.
02:36And if the world could just come with a fraction of that kindness and courage, then we could deal with
02:43these problems.
02:44It's incredibly moving, the testimony you're giving us here, Tom.
02:47And you mentioned it just in the run-up at the beginning of that story about going through checkpoints with
02:52child soldiers.
02:54Again, that's a whole different level of problems, the use of child soldiers in that context.
02:59Absolutely.
02:59You're looking at generations of trauma here being passed on.
03:02And unless we heal those wounds of history, you're going to have future generations coming back out, being radicalized by
03:08that violence.
03:09And you can see the fear in their eyes, these young kids.
03:14And you know what they've probably done themselves, the atrocities they've carried out, they've been instructed to carry out.
03:21So it's, look, we need a peace process.
03:24And I'm working with the American administration, with Massad Boulos, the U.S. envoy.
03:28I was with him in Washington a couple of weeks ago doing this, working with the countries in the region
03:33to try to get ceasefires, to try to get that humanitarian access we need.
03:38But ultimately, people in Sudan are just crying out for peace.
03:41So I'm heading to South Sudan tomorrow.
03:44You know, this violence is exploding outwards to the countries of the region as well, Chad, South Sudan and beyond.
03:51South Sudan independent in 2011, breaking away from Sudan, but never being at peace.
03:56That's right.
03:57And the numbers are staggering.
03:58So in Jongli State, and I'll be heading there, 280,000 people displaced in recent weeks.
04:04You know, this is unbelievable scale of suffering.
04:09And as I say, you're seeing it also in Chad, one of the least developed countries in the world.
04:15Already huge amounts of poverty, enormous threat of climate change in Chad.
04:20So you've got layer on layer of challenges.
04:22And the world just isn't responding with the generosity and the solidarity that we need.
04:28That generosity, that solidarity is essential.
04:31But coming back to what is happening inside Sudan, the risk that your people are under when they're trying to
04:37do the basics of their job, it seems incredibly unfair that that is happening.
04:41And I'm wondering whether there's any kind of pressure that can be brought from the various countries that are helping
04:48to fund either side of that Sudanese conflict.
04:51Because there are countries who are paying for the arms, paying for influence, paying to get some of the resources
04:56out of Sudan and exploiting that.
04:58Can any pressure be put on them to try to, I don't know, calm things down?
05:02I know it's a big question.
05:03I know it's probably something that couldn't happen.
05:06But what is your sense of that?
05:07So it's a key part of the equation.
05:09And we talk a lot, I talk a lot to the countries of the region, to the Quad that is
05:14looking to get some sort of resolution, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the US, United Arab Emirates.
05:19You know, we're calling not just for people to stop killing us, but for people to stop arming those who
05:24are killing us and funding those who are killing us.
05:26And more importantly, those who are killing those civilians.
05:29And without that regional solution, this conflict will burn and burn and burn.
05:35And tens of millions of more people will suffer.
05:37You mentioned El Fasher in Darfur.
05:39Darfur, if we just go back a few generations, it's conflict after conflict after conflict.
05:44You mentioned Kordofan, where there have been drone strikes.
05:47Of course, around the capital, where it all began back in April 2023, still affecting around there.
05:54Omdormand, the neighbouring city, still big problems there, clearly.
05:58Absolutely.
05:58I mean, we're now getting more missions into the capital, into Khartoum.
06:01We held a country team meeting there just a month or so ago.
06:06We have a fantastic team in country in Sudan, some of our most experienced and bravest humanitarians who are going
06:12towards the danger in order to help the survivors.
06:17But we need the world to come behind us with that generosity, with the funding, but most importantly, with that
06:22political support to stop the conflict.
06:24Indeed.
06:25And it's getting that, I suppose.
06:26One would hope that the Western world, the rich countries, are 100% behind you.
06:32I take it you have that support.
06:34We have the support through statements.
06:37We have a lot of meetings.
06:38We have a willingness to engage.
06:41We don't have the funding that we need.
06:43We need that generosity.
06:44And we don't have a really strong United Security Council position behind a peace process.
06:51So we'll do as well as we can with the access that we get.
06:54We'll keep fighting to get across lines, to get our convoys moving.
06:57We've got a convoy, a really important convoy, up into the quarterfans yesterday with essential food from the World Food
07:03Programme and nutrition from UNICEF and support from other partners.
07:08But it's just not enough, given the scale of what we're dealing with.
07:11Tom, we need to leave it here.
07:12We could talk all night because there's so much to cover and obviously other parts and other dossier that you're
07:17involved in, such as Gaza, which we didn't even touch on because we've got so much to talk about with
07:20the Sudan.
07:21Good luck on your journey to South Sudan.
07:22I hope it all goes well and I hope you get the support that is clearly needed on all the
07:28aspects that you're working on.
07:29Tom Fletcher, the UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs.
07:32Pleasure to meet you.
07:33Pleasure to have you here in France 24 and good luck with the mission.
07:35Great to see you.
07:36Thank you very much indeed.
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