Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

We need the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs to speak up about what is happening in Sudan, where an absolutely horrific genocide is taking place. Some 12.4 million people have been forcibly displaced, more than half of whom are children. Some 24 million people need humanitarian assistance. Half of the population is food insecure or facing famine. Some 75% of healthcare is not functioning. There is a refugee crisis. War crimes are being committed by both the army and the militia, including mass killings, targeted executions and sexual violence and rape as weapons of war on women and girls. There is ethnic cleansing in Darfur against the non-Arab communities, especially the Masalit, and use of child soldiers.

Why is this happening? It is because in December 2018 the people of Sudan rose up against a brutal dictator, al-Bashir, ending his almost 30-year rule. The regime plotted to form an interim civilian transition, which was unfortunately a huge mistake the people of Sudan were pressed to accept by outside forces, including the EU. That gave them time to regroup and organise and now there is a power struggle between two warring factions, Burhan and Hamedti, going on since 2023, in the middle of which the ordinary people of Sudan are caught.

Where is the international urgency to end this situation and push for a ceasefire? The Minister for Foreign Affairs must intervene. We have in Ireland, by the way, a significant Sudanese community that has been here for 20 to 25 years. We have 1,600 doctors on the register of doctors, many of whom are leading consultants in our hospitals. Many others are engineers and so on. That community is trying to function while looking after their families and facing what is going on without any support or assistance. They see others who have been getting assistance while this turmoil is taking place. Western governments are not neutral in this situation. They cry crocodile tears but they are, for example, responsible for the RSF militia. They used that militia. The EU boosted it as part of a migration pact and paid security guards to keep people from coming to Europe. Imperialist powers and the Gulf states have enabled, through bogus compromises and power sharing arrangements with the butchers of Sudan, the quashing of dissent and bolstering of the counter-revolution.

The UAE and the Saudis are fuelling and backing various forces. Neither side in this conflict has the interests of ordinary people at heart. We need the international so-called community to speak, push for a ceasefire to deliver humanitarian aid and to assist the ordinary people of Sudan to have peace and security in their country.

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