April 15 marks the first anniversary of the civil war in Sudan, a bloody power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. According to the United Nations, as of January 21, 13,000 to 15,000 people had been killed and another 33,000 were injured.
“Nearly a year since this crisis began, the situation in Sudan remains catastrophic, and it is only getting worse,” said United States Permanent Representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
“Some 18 million Sudanese people face acute food insecurity. Children are starving, wasting, and dying. Far from their homes and their communities, millions of refugees are praying in over-crowded camps. Clean water is sparse; measles, cholera, and other preventable diseases have spread. And then there are still those in Sudan; people in Darfur who wake up not to the call of prayer, but to the sound of gunfire, of shelling, of cries for help.”
“We are in a crisis that is already fatal for many of the most vulnerable and could get dramatically worse in the coming weeks,” said U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello.
“This is a time for coming together and getting the Sudanese people back on the path that they began in 2019 with such creative means and courage to believe that they could build that beautiful democratic future for the people of Sudan. That’s the future they want and deserve.”
“The Sudanese people are very united and what they want, they want an end to this war. … They want to build the core institutions of a democratic Sudan,” said Special Envoy Perriello.
“While there may be divisions on Twitter or other places, when it comes to the core issues here of a desire for peace immediately, for full humanitarian access and for return to the constitutional transition that helped unite and inspire the Sudanese people and more back in 2019, and the issue of a unified professional military.”
“These are issues of great consensus to the Sudanese people and issues that can help bring stability to the region at a time that there are so many other destabilizing factors,” said Special Envoy Perriello. “In helping to elevate the voices and the unity of the Sudanese people, I think that can also help pave and shine a light on the path forward, in addition to raising the consequences for those actors who undermine the peace efforts.”
