The European Commission will allocate close to 355 million euros in humanitarian aid to Sudan in 2024, European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said on Monday, exactly one year since the conflict broke out, devastating the African nation and its population.
"To achieve any meaningful change, the entire international community must act together and must act now. On the one hand, by pledging more humanitarian funding. The European Commission will announce its contribution for the year 2024 in the amount of almost 355 million euros in order to reaffirm our support for the Sudanese," Lenarcic told reporters during the International Humanitarian Conference for Sudan and its Neighbours in Paris.
At the same time, the European Commission supports the people of Sudan by insisting that all parties to the conflict respect international humanitarian law, he said. The situation in Sudan has spiraled into "one of the worst humanitarian disasters ever on the African continent," Lenarcic added.
On April 15, 2023, clashes broke out between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The parties to the conflict have since introduced a number of temporary nationwide ceasefires, but none has helped settle the conflict.
Sudanese Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim told Sputnik earlier on Monday that more than 13,000 people had been killed and over 30,000 others injured during one year of the armed conflict in Sudan. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that 8.5 million people have been displaced due to the fighting in the country.