Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

I start by sending my solidarity to the Sudanese community here in Ireland, many of whom are doing amazing work in so many spheres of life, particularly our health services. They are doctors, engineers and so on and many have lived and contributed here. I send them solidarity because of what they are dealing with, hearing about the absolute horror that has happened at home.

I spoke on Sudan in 2019. It was just after a revolution had taken place to throw out the despot al-Bashir. Unfortunately, that revolution was drowned in blood, and the partners in crime in drowning that revolution in blood were the RSF and the army. The two so-called warring parties were once brothers-in-arms. We have to analyse why this has happened, who is complicit in it and how it can be ended. The genocide in Sudan is still ongoing despite the RSF agreeing in principle to a ceasfire put forward by the US. It is unlikely the peace deal will end the hostilities because the UAE, which is helping the RSF, is very involved in the talks as well.

The World Food Programme has noted that 21 million people face acute hunger, and many of them face catastrophic hunger. The genocide has killed 150,000 people and displaced 13 million people, but many more deaths are probably hidden at this point. The figure is likely to be far higher.

I want to call out the role of the EU in contributing to the problems because it is kind of kept under the carpet. The Save the Children charity has criticised the EU specifically for aiding and abetting the genocide, or allowing the genocide, with its strict border controls, which drives children into the hands of traffickers and smugglers and back to unsafe countries. Some 10,000 refugees from Sudan arrived in Europe and it seems that a minority have been accepted in the EU. However, the EU is also responsible for the crisis by giving support to the RSF and money to assist in holding people in their migration. These are the butchers who have been carrying out these horrific attacks and the sexual violence, and who have been using children - I have seen this in videos - to torture and kill people.

We have also seen that Bulgarian, French and British arms have been found in Sudan. They are wielded by the RSF, probably via the UAE, which is supporting the RSF. France has sold €21 billion worth of weapons to the UAE. These have ended up in the hands of these butchers.

The EU has specifically entered into a financial relationship with Egypt, paying it €7 billion over two years for migration management. The Irish Government has classed Egypt as a safe country to send people back to. Egypt is a brutal dictatorship and it is playing a key role in all of this as well. It has tightened up residency permits and restricted people from entering. This is causing huge problems.

Ireland has a role as well. Ireland has €2.5 billion in trade with the UAE, which is directly assisting the RSF right now in carrying out these atrocities, and the Government is seeking to expand that trade after establishing a joint economic mission. As I said, it classed Egypt as a safe place, providing legitimacy for that regime which treats refugees so deplorably. The EU has tried to make a point that it is an outside viewer on this, but it is complicit, having boosted and assisted the RSF in the past and also allowing the arms sales I mentioned.

I want to mention briefly what lies behind this and why Sudan is of such interest. Sudan is strategically important because of its access to the Red Sea - it is a vital shipping route - its agricultural land and, of course, its gold. That is what is fuelling all the outside colonial forces that have backed side one or other side, and sometimes both sides, in order to have influence in this region. However, an absolutely crucial reason for UAE involvement is that it does not want to see a democratic regime in this area, one that would expose and give an example throughout the Arab world to overthrow despots, as the Sudanese people did successfully.

For more than a decade, the UAE has been a key sponsor of the counter-revolutionary forces in the Arab world and in many other countries as well.

We need to assist the Sudanese people to get rid of the internal despots and outside influence, and let them enjoy, use, democratically control and own the wealth and resources they have. Hopefully, the revolutionary fervour that was so important among young people and doctors across the whole population can be reinstated. Let us support the Sudanese people in any way we can to do this.

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