Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL501):
Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports of atrocities, including ethnic cleansing and gender-based violence against women, across Sudan in recent months. (HL501)
Tabled on: 22 November 2023
Answer:
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon:
The UK has consistently denounced all human rights violations that have taken place since the military coup on 25 October 2021, including the escalation in incidents since 15 April 2023. We condemn the ongoing attacks on innocent civilians by militias, particularly the Rapid Support Forces; this violence has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. The UK, alongside the Troika (US & Norway), issued a joint statement on 17 November condemning the reported mass killings including ethnic targeting of non-Arab and other communities, killings of traditional leaders, unjust detentions, and obstruction of humanitarian aid. We continue to denounce conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in Sudan including at the UN Human Rights Council and Security Council, and in a joint statement in July, alongside 15 other members, by the International Alliance on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict. The UK has enhanced its atrocity risk monitoring, including the monitoring of CRSV. The October UN Human Rights Council adopted the UK-led ‘Sudan Core Group’ resolution to establish a Fact-Finding Mission to ensure that credible allegations of human rights investigated impartially to support future accountability efforts.
Date and time of answer: 05 Dec 2023 at 12:55.
