Amnesty International has called on global governments to provide more support to Sudan, as NGOs say they are unable to help desperate people amid severe funding cuts.
By The New Arab Staff
Amnesty International has called on international governments to expand aid funding to Sudan as its civil war nears its third anniversary.
In a statement issued on Friday, Amnesty said that aid cuts are “threatening efforts to tackle a host of grave health risks, including malnutrition, cholera, trauma and injury”.
The funding cuts have already had a direct effect on how international NGO’s have been able to respond to the war, with one telling Amnesty that it can only meet the needs of 50 percent of cases of children suffering severe acute malnutrition.
NGOs also told Amnesty they are experiencing other shortages, such as basic medicines and antibiotics, while others said operations have had to be shut down.
According to one NGO leader speaking with Amnesty, “You will find the organisations still existing on the ground. But if you talk about, are you able to get enough supplies to support these facilities? The answer would be no.”
Amnesty made the call as the third International Ministerial Conference on Sudan is due to be held in Berlin on 15 April, co-hosted by Germany and the African Union, with France, the UK, the US, and the European Union attending.
Amnesty Regional Director for East and South Africa, Tigere Chagutah, said: “The Berlin meeting must not be another talking shop.”
“International donors must seize this opportunity to commit more funding to frontline non-governmental organisations working in Sudan. They must recognise the terrible suffering of civilians and take meaningful action to alleviate it.”
Sudan’s civil war has been ongoing since fighting broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the capital Khartoum on 15 April 2023.
RSF chief Mohamed Ibrahim Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, formed an unrecognised parallel government last year.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data’s Senior Analyst for East Africa, Jalale Getachew Birru, 59,000 conflict-related deaths have occurred since the war began, though estimates by other organisations range into the hundreds of thousands.
“Fighting has intensified in Kordofan and Blue Nile, now the main battlegroups between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces.”
“Strategic cities like El Obeid, Dilling, and Kadugli have become besieged zones, while violence in Blue Nile has reached its deadliest levels since 2023, with at least 450 people killed between January and March 2026 alone,” she added.
The war has also caused catastrophic suffering for civilians, with the Norwegian Refugee Council estimating that 9 million people have been internally displaced, and 3.5 million have taken refuge outside of Sudan.
80 percent of people in Sudan face acute hunger.
Chad and South Sudan, which neighbour Sudan, host 900,000 and 600,000 refugees each, but their populations are also suffering acute hunger.
On Thursday, the NRC said that the humanitarian crisis in Sudan was leading to an “erosion of resilience among both displaced people and host communities”, with Jan Egeland, the head of the NRC, describing the situation as a “collapse of survival systems.”
“Communities that have shared everything for three years have been pushed to their limits,” he added. – newarab.com