The and Britain on Tuesday pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to ease suffering in , on the second anniversary of the .
Tens of thousands of people have died, 14 million people have been displaced and large parts of the country have been pushed into famine since 2023.
Senior diplomats and aid officials from the , , , the European Union and the gathered at the one-day conference hosted in London, where they called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
The EU and its member states pledged €522 million ($590 million) in aid for 2025.
What did diplomats say?
However, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the conference that “no amount of humanitarian assistance will be sufficient if this war continues.”
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom announced £120 million (€141 million) in funding for the coming year to deliver food for 650,000 people in Sudan, as the war unleashes widespread famine.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy acknowledged that achieving peace would take time, renewed international effort and “patient diplomacy.”
Lammy told delegates that “many have given up on Sudan,” and have conceded that continued conflict is inevitable.
He said a lack of political will is the biggest obstacle to peace.
“We have got to persuade the warring parties to protect civilians, to let aid in and across the country and to put peace first,” Lammy added.
Attendees included officials from Western nations, international institutions and Sudan’s neighbors, but no representatives from Sudan were present.
Why did civil war break out in Sudan?
Sudan’s civil war broke out on April 15, 2023, in Khartoum and has since expanded throughout the country,
The conflict stemmed from a power struggle between Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of a paramilitary organization known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Dagalo and al-Burhan had previously shared power after a military coup in 2021 that ousted the transitional government put in place after the 2019 overthrow of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.
But relations between the two strongmen soured,
The RSF are rooted in and control much of its territory, as well as parts of Sudan’s south.
, and holds sway in the east and north, leaving the nation essentially divided in two.
Both the Sudanese army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes.
Civil war causes massive humanitarian crisis
Dallia Abdelmoneim, a Sudanese political commentato who fled the violence, told DW that Sudan’s civil war is now “largest and the worst humanitarian crisis” in the world.
“The longer this war continues, the worse the situation becomes, not just politically or military wise, but even more so for the civilians,” she said.
Abdelmoneim added that “very little is being done to find a way to end this war or to at least reach a ceasefire.”
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, said two years of “a ruinous war” in Sudan had left civilians “trapped in a relentless nightmare of death and destruction.”
She urged all parties to “take concrete steps” to protect civilians.
Ahead of the conference, Baerbock pledged €125 million ($142 million) in humanitarian aid to allow international and local aid organizations to deliver urgently needed food and medicine to people in need.
She called the conflict “the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our time.”
African Union’s commissioner for political affairs, Bankole Adeoye, said, “Achieving peace in Sudan depends on valuing every voice and everyone playing a role in building a prosperous Sudan.”
, but the death toll is likely to be much higher.
The civil war has also prompted the world’s largest displacement crisis, with some 13 million people displaced to refugee camps and neighboring countries.
The World Food Program says
There are also growing fears that the conflict will spill over Sudan’s border and stir tensions and instability across entire region.
Edited by: Zac Crellin, Wesley Rahn
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