Washington DC, US
Reuters
The US will make a push of more than a hundred million in additional funding to respond to the conflict in Sudan as Washington seeks to spur international response at a donor conference on the humanitarian crisis this month, the US Special Envoy to the North African country said on Wednesday.
Special Envoy Tom Perriello told Reuters he hopes that partners around the world will put greater priority on the Sudanese civil war and that more countries will step up at a donor conference in Paris on 15th April.
US Special Envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello meets with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (not pictured) at the new headquarters of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the New Administrative Capital (NAC) in the east of Cairo, Egypt, on 18th March, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File photo
The date marks a year since the conflict erupted after long-simmering tensions erupted into heavy fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“The international response has been pitiful. We’re at five per cent of the needed amount,” said Perriello, adding that the US has already committed over a billion dollars in humanitarian relief to the conflict.
“We’ll be doing another nine-figure push around this,” he said, without elaborating.
The war has pushed millions into extreme hunger, created the world’s largest displacement crisis, and triggered waves of ethnically driven killings and sexual violence in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
Perriello also said that peace talks were unlikely to resume on 18th April, the date he previously said Washington was eyeing.
Saudi Arabia and the US led unsuccessful talks in Jeddah last year to try to reach a truce.
“I don’t think we’ll see meetings in Jeddah on the 18th,” he said, adding that Washington is not waiting for formal talks to begin but that negotiations are happening every day.
“We would love frankly for the talks to have started last week. But what we know is the Saudis are committed to the talks, to talks that include a broader set of the key actors, and we are hoping that they will commit to a date.”
