Top diplomats from France, Germany and the European Union intend to seek more aid funding for Sudan at a meeting in Paris on Monday to mark the first anniversary of the clashes in the North African country, the French Foreign Ministry revealed.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet is attending the meeting along with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock, top EU diplomat Josep Borrell and EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, the ministry said.
"The idea is to move this crisis up to the top of the agenda," said Christophe Lemoine, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry. "We cannot let Sudan become a forgotten crisis."
On Sunday, the US announced an additional $100 million for emergency food aid, nutrition support and other vital assistance in response to the conflict in Sudan, which Washington described as "one of the world’s gravest crises."
In April 2023, clashes broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF. Since then, they have introduced some temporary nationwide ceasefires, but none has helped to resolve the conflict. In late October, the warring parties resumed negotiations, mediated by Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, but the hostilities have continued.
The UN World Food Program earlier warned that the ongoing conflict in Sudan poses a significant risk of triggering the worst famine in human history, adding that the crisis has severely disrupted the lives of millions of people in the country.
UNICEF estimated that 4.86 million Sudanese are acutely malnourished as of March 2024, of which 3.66 million are children under five, and 1.2 million are pregnant and lactating women, reflecting an increase of more than 22% from the beginning of 2023.
Sudan's Health Ministry told Sputnik on Sunday that the fight in Khartoum and the rest of Sudan's provinces has killed more than 13,000 people and injured more than 30,000 in a year.
In late March, Russia's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Anna Yevstigneeva, said that the conflict in Sudan has worsened the situation in the country, and that the West's measures against Sudan have undermined the stability of its society.
"The conflict has clearly worsened the humanitarian situation in Sudan. But one should not forget that the economic and other restrictive measures applied by the West against the country have undermined the stability of Sudanese society," she said at the Security Council meeting on Sudan in March.
Last June, the US announced sanctions against entities linked to actors involved in the conflict in Sudan - the army and the paramilitary RSF. In 1997, Washington imposed comprehensive economic, trade, and financial sanctions on Sudan after designating it a state sponsor of terrorism. In 2017, the US lifted some of its economic and trade sanctions against Sudan, citing its cooperation with the Sudanese government in the fight against terrorism.