Mr. David Regan:

I thank the Deputy for the question. It is very difficult for our staff. We have many staff who are themselves displaced. They were in Khartoum but they had to flee because the city has been the centre of the war for the entire period. They are working with the displaced in the various camps. Their families are elsewhere. That is the reality for them. We have staff who work in Darfur who exit to Chad for a couple of days off and then go back into Darfur both for safety reasons and to get a break from the reality of bombardment. We are looking at aerial bombardment of the cities and towns we are working in as a common feature of life there at the moment for everybody, not just humanitarians but the entire population.

We have staff in the south of the country in the Kordofan area. They are working away there. The humanitarian access point the Deputy referred to is so relevant. We cannot get supplies to them. We cannot even reach them, and they cannot come out, but they are working as best they can with whatever supplies we can get to them through cash or through private sector transport to enable them to operate. We literally cannot get to them, and they cannot get out. They are there and they are working away. They are very brave because it is a difficult environment. It is important to raise that.

Would I say that the humanitarians in Sudan are being specifically targeted? I am not sure we would go there. It is the entire population that is being targeted, and quite deliberately, as Ms Walsh alluded to. We are seeing the burning of crops. That is nothing to do with anything other than trying to destroy an entire area of land to shift the population ruthlessly. That is what that is, and that is going on. I would say it is an attack on populations rather than humanitarians.