Berlin donors pledge €1.8bn
An international donors’ conference in Berlin secured nearly €1.8 billion in pledges to relieve Sudan’s humanitarian crisis as the war moves into its fourth year. (reuters.com) Aid groups say more than 11 million people have been uprooted, nearly twice that number face hunger, and over 30 million require humanitarian assistance — a scale the UN secretary-general has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. ( )
International donors meeting in Berlin pledged about €1.5 billion, or nearly €1.8 billion, for Sudan as the war entered its fourth year on April 15. (reuters.com) Germany hosted the conference with the European Union, the African Union, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Germany would contribute €212 million, while the European Union and its member states announced more than €812 million. (gov.uk, ec.europa.eu) The money is meant for humanitarian relief, not military or reconstruction spending, as fighting between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces has cut off aid routes and uprooted civilians across the country. Reuters reported that Berlin had aimed to mobilize more than $1 billion before the meeting opened. (reuters.com, un.org) The scale of need has kept rising faster than the funding. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 33.7 million people in Sudan will require assistance in 2026, while the Sudan response plan was only 16.6 percent funded when that update was published. (unocha.org, humanitarianaction.info) Displacement has spread far beyond the front lines. The International Organization for Migration said in January that nearly one in three people in Sudan had been displaced over 1,000 days of conflict, and United Nations agencies said this month that about 14 million people remain uprooted. (iom.int, news.un.org) Hunger has deepened alongside the fighting. The World Food Programme said this week that more than 19 million people face acute hunger in Sudan, and United Nations officials said famine conditions have persisted in parts of the country. (wfp.org, news.un.org) The war began on April 15, 2023, after a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo turned into open combat in Khartoum and then spread to Darfur and other regions. Reuters said the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people. (reuters.com, france24.com) The Berlin meeting also tried to push diplomacy back onto the agenda. In a joint statement, the co-hosts backed civilian protection, unhindered humanitarian access and a political process leading to a ceasefire, while Sudan’s foreign ministry criticized parts of the gathering and objected to the exclusion of the Sudanese government from the main talks. (gov.uk, sudantribune.com) The pledges give aid agencies more money to work with, but they do not stop the war that created the emergency. Three years after the first battles in Khartoum, donors are still financing food, shelter and medicine for a crisis that keeps expanding. (reuters.com, unocha.org)
