A large coalition of humanitarian organizations, human rights groups, grassroots organizations from Sudan, and experts on genocide prevention – including the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) – has drawn up a dramatic appeal to the United Nations and, specifically, to the UN Security Council. It will be presented in New York today. The signatories are accusing the international community of passivity in the face of the horrendous war in Sudan. The country is no longer on the brink, it has already fallen, the letter states.

According to Sarah Reinke, head of the human rights department of the STP, the German Federal Government has not yet undergone the necessary steps to contain the violence in Sudan and to provide humanitarian aid to those who are affected: “What is needed now is a joint effort by governments, international organizations such as the UN, and NGOs. 20 years after the genocide, we must not just watch idly while another genocide unfolds.”

The UN Security Council should adopt a resolution that condemns the arbitrary violence against the civilian population and the impunity for the crimes, while at the same time demanding safe and unrestricted access for aid deliveries. International efforts to protect the civilian population must be coordinated, the appeal states: “Since the beginning of the war in April, more than 5 million people were forced to leave their homes. More than 20 million people, 42 percent of the Sudanese population, are struggling with acute food insecurity. At least 498 children have already starved to death. There are attacks on hospitals and doctors in the entire country, and 80 percent of the large hospitals had to close down.”
 

You can find the statement and the list of signatories here.