David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Gaffey for that and for the work he and his team are doing on this. I understand that about half the country is experiencing severe hunger at the moment. The figure I have seen is 25.6 million. What is his estimate of the number of people killed? Officially, 20,000 people have been killed but I have seen figures stating 150,000 may have been slaughtered so far. With the looming famine, the number of people who may die because of this could escalate to 1 million or more quite quickly. I urge that this be treated with serious urgency. As Mr. Gaffey said, it is the most serious conflict in the world today. I understand his explanation for why it is not getting more notice. It is quite reasonable that if there is nobody to report what is going on, then people do not know about it.

Mr. Gaffey commented about the Horn of Africa and other neighbouring countries also being destabilised. How much has this been caused by underdevelopment over the centuries? Africa has certainly suffered from being a colony of other European countries. This is probably an issue too. Will he comment on the capital, Khartoum? I understand it has almost been levelled at this stage. It is pretty bleak.

What is the balance between the two forces? It might be resolved if one of the armies won but at the moment my understanding is that it is almost a stalemate, that they are both equally resourced from outside, and that no one is gaining any advantage. I would prefer if there was a ceasefire, full stop, but the other resolution here would be for one actor to be defeated and then there would not be a war if that happened. I worry about retribution further down the road if that happened because the rule of law does not exist in any shape or form in this country, from what I can see. The terror and violence there is unprecedented in many ways.