(WASHINGTON, D.C. – 6/25/2024) – The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) – the nation’s umbrella group of national, regional, and local Muslim associations – calls upon the U.S. and the international community to urgently make good on their humanitarian pledges, made at a Paris conference last April, to provide more than $2 billion in relief for the increasingly desperate Sudanese people victimized by displacement, famine, and assault as a result of Sudan’s 14-month ethnic-driven civil war.
We also urge the international community to deliver aid urgently and fairly to all parts of the Sudanese population, irrespective of religion, ethnicity, and political labeling.
“Even with the U.S.’s mid-June announcement that it intends to provide $315 million in emergency food and healthcare aid to the desperate Sudanese people, that adds up for all donor countries to less than 8% of the $4.1 billion the UN’s humanitarian plan for Sudan says is needed to save people from famine and assist 10.8 million displaced, including refugees – half of whom are children,” said Oussama Jammal, USCMO secretary general.
“We need the international community to fulfill its humanitarian commitment to the 25 million Sudanese now in immediate need of food and emergency aid, and to do so without excuses or restriction based on political, ethnic, and religious calculations or sentiment,” said Jammal.
This means three things:
- The two warring factions of the Sudanese military – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – must allow the free flow of humanitarian aid into all parts of the country, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries must be foremost in applying the necessary moral pressure on the factions toward this minimal end.
- Donor countries must immediately pay their monetary pledges to the Sudan humanitarian effort to the proper UN and international agencies aiding the Sudanese people.
- Equally important, the international community must find the resolve to deliver this lifesaving relief into Sudan and the countries its refugees have poured into without ethnic or religious political calculations – including for the refuges in the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda.
Sudan’s humanitarian crisis is mushrooming into one of the largest since the Second World War:
- 2.5 million could die of starvation by the end of September
- 25 million of Sudan’s 45 million people – more than 22 million of whom are children – are now in dire need of massive humanitarian assistance just to survive.
- 14 million children face malnutrition, requiring urgent food assistance
- 47% of Sudanese suffer acute food insecurity or emergency need
- 8.8 million internally displaced, the largest ever reported
- 4+ million children displaced, the largest in the world
- 2 million refugees in neighboring countries
- 90% of 19 million children out of school
- 70%-80% of hospitals and clinics are no longer operational, meaning two-thirds of Sudanese have no access to healthcare
USCMO calls for three actions:
All conflicting factions in Sudan, as well as refugee host countries, must clear all avenues for massive humanitarian aid to reach the victims of this conflict unimpeded.
Donor countries must immediately pay the $4.1 billion needed – including fulfilling their respective monetary pledges of the April Paris Humanitarian Conference for Sudan – to the UN’s Sudan relief plan.
The international community must become evenhanded and far more flexible in delivering humanitarian aid to all parts, all religions, and all ethnicities of Sudan and the Sudanese population in dire need, and it must be far more courageous and resourceful in delivering this humanitarian aid to the suffering people of Sudan.
We pray for the welfare of the desperate people of Sudan and ask God to bring peace to them and restore their lives and country.
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