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Darfur – the killing continues: Letter to the UNSC regarding the 10th anniversary of its referral of Darfur to the ICC.
Darfur
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench 25th March 2015
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the escalation of the conflict, including sexual violence targeted at women, in Darfur over the past 12 months; and what assessment they have made of the outcome of investigations into reports of mass rape in Tabit earlier this year.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Conservative 25th March 2015
We remain deeply concerned by the continued escalation of conflict in Darfur that has resulted in over 40,000 newly displaced persons so far in 2015. Reports of widespread sexual violence, including Human Rights Watch’s investigation into the events in Tabit, are deeply disturbing. In my press statement of 13 February I reiterated our call for a full and independent investigation into what happened in Tabit and unfettered access for the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Mission in Darfur, as well as for humanitarian agencies to provide assistance.
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench 25th March 2015
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Northover on 4 March (HLDeb, col 215), what steps they are taking with their international partners to prevent the government of Sudan from further destabilising the situation in South Sudan through cross-border interference and interventions; on what evidence they base their assertion that “the government of Sudan themselves are playing a non-obstructive role generally speaking”; and to which non-governmental humanitarian organisations and charities the government of Sudan allows access to provide humanitarian assistance in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Conservative 25th March 2015
We have consistently been clear in our private engagements with countries in the region, including Sudan, that they need to support all efforts to bring peace to the people of South Sudan. The Government of Sudan has played a non-obstructive role in the peace process led by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which it has supported, including through being part of IGAD’s core mediation team.
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench 25th March 2015
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the number of (1) villages destroyed in Darfur in 2014, (2) people who were newly displaced that year, (3) displaced people in Darfur in total, and (4) Darfurians currently in refugee camps in Eastern Chad.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Conservative 25th March 2015
According to the latest UN Panel of Experts report of 15th January 2015, 3,324 villages were destroyed between December 2013 and April 2014. The United Nations (UN) Sudan 2015 Humanitarian Response Plan estimates that in Darfur 430,000 people were displaced in 2014 resulting in a total number of 2.5 million people displaced. The United Nation High Commission for Refugees has a record of 367,229 Sudanese refugees in Chad of the 28 February 2015.
According to data relating to UK funding of the Common Humanitarian Fund in 2014 we can confirm that the Government of Sudan has allowed access to both national and international non-governmental humanitarian organisations in Darfur and government-controlled parts of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench
My Lords, does the Minister recall our exchange on 17 May 2012, when I asked her whether she concurred with the view of Dr Mukesh Kapila, formerly our high representative in Sudan, that the second genocide of the 21st century was unfolding in South Kordofan, Darfur being the first? In her reply she said that,
“it is clear that there have been indiscriminate attacks on civilians and war crimes”.—[ Official Report , 17/5/12; col. 526.]
In the nearly three years that have elapsed since then, during which an estimated 2,500 bombs have been dropped on civilian targets, why has the international community totally failed to prevent this horrific carnage, failed systematically to collect the evidence, failed to establish an international committee of inquiry, and failed to hold anyone to account for these atrocities?
Baroness Northover Liberal Democrat
I do remember that exchange and I remember the discussions we had after that question as well—as no doubt the noble Lord does—and
the sensitivity of what we did in trying to make sure that we were able to get humanitarian organisations in, which we are seeking to do. We are extremely concerned to make sure that that access is there. It is indeed a very challenging situation and we would hold both sides to account. Certainly, in terms of what the Government of Sudan have been doing, we have enormous concerns and address this through the human rights activities that I was talking about.
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench 3rd February 2015
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when officials from the Department for International Development, the European Union or United Nations agencies last had access to conflict areas of South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur; how many displaced people are estimated to be located in Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains; and how many refugees and people displaced by conflict in the Republic of Sudan and South Sudan are estimated to be in camps inside and outside these countries.
Baroness Northover Liberal Democrat 3rd February 2015
United Nations agencies operate in all five states of Darfur and Government held areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. DFID and ECHO travel regularly to these states (with the exception of South Kordofan) to monitor programmes. The Government routinely denies humanitarian access to areas of active conflict where needs are often greatest. Humanitarian access from Sudan toopposition held areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan has been blocked by the Government since 2012.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are 3.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan, 1,470,000 of these live in IDP camps in Darfur. There are 540,000 IDPs in the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, with a fifth of these living in non-government controlled areas. There are an estimated 625,000 Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries. In South Sudan, there are around 1.5 million IDPs and 500,000 South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries, including 120,000 in Sudan
South Kordofan and Blue Nile
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench 25th March 2015
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Northover on 4 March (HLDeb, col 215), what steps they are taking with their international partners to prevent the government of Sudan from further destabilising the situation in South Sudan through cross-border interference and interventions; on what evidence they base their assertion that “the government of Sudan themselves are playing a non-obstructive role generally speaking”; and to which non-governmental humanitarian organisations and charities the government of Sudan allows access to provide humanitarian assistance in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Conservative 25th March 2015
We have consistently been clear in our private engagements with countries in the region, including Sudan, that they need to support all efforts to bring peace to the people of South Sudan. The Government of Sudan has played a non-obstructive role in the peace process led by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which it has supported, including through being part of IGAD’s core mediation team.
According to data relating to UK funding of the Common Humanitarian Fund in 2014 we can confirm that the Government of Sudan has allowed access to both national and international non-governmental humanitarian organisations in Darfur and government-controlled parts of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench 23rd March 2015
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many Sudanese people they assess to have been displaced or to have fled from Blue Nile or South Kordofan to Ethiopia or South Sudan.
Baroness Northover Liberal Democrat 23rd March 2015
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has a record, as of 28 February 2015, of 233,000 refugees from Sudan in South Sudan.
There are a further 36,000 refugees from Sudan in Ethiopia.
Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench 6:16 pm, 10th March 2015
My Lords, in debating the findings of this report, we clearly owe a great debt to the noble, Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, and the members of the Select Committee. The ability to produce reports of this quality eloquently underlined the need for an international affairs Select Committee of this House, as the noble Lord said in his introductory comments—and I happily echo that.
In July last year, when introducing a Cross-Bench debate on the importance of the BBC World Service and the British Council, I argued that the deployment of smart power would always consist of a combination of Joseph Nye’s soft power, backed up by the hard power of military capability—a point that my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup made so eloquently earlier. I drew on the British Academy’s excellent report, The Art of Attraction. In the intervening nine months, the world has become more fragmented and dangerous, with terrorist webs, rampaging militias and armies posing existential threats. As it emerges from a period of sustained austerity and battle fatigue, following wearying wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain in 2015 is a country that has become uncertain about its
place in the world. This uncertainty is reinforced by jihadist militias and terrorists, the territorial aggression of Russia, the nuclear threat posed by Iran and North Korea, and the unresolved question of what sort of relationship we are to have with continental Europe.
Our world is less tolerant and more violent: from Syria, Iraq and the continued rise of the so-called Islamic State or Daesh, which continues to murder people and eradicate culture and heritage; to the horrors of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, where the Sudanese regime has dropped more than 2,500 bombs on its civilian population; to Boko Haram’s abduction of girls in Nigeria; to the burning alive of Christians in Pakistan; to the recent beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts in Libya; and to the continuing incarceration of 200,000 people in the prison camps of North Korea. The need to deploy smart power is self-evident. It would be folly in these circumstances to reduce further our military or non-military capability.