Musings From Abroad

US wants more funding in response to Sudan conflict

Published

8 months ago

April 11, 2024

The United States Special Envoy to Sudan says that Washington will push for more than $100 million in extra funding to help with the conflict in the North African country. Washington hopes to rally other donors at a conference this month for donors to talk about the humanitarian crisis.

Partners from around the world should give the Sudanese civil war more attention, according to Special Envoy Tom Perriello, who also hopes that more countries will show their support at a donor meeting in Paris on April 15.

The Sudanese Army (SAF) and the militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) went to war on April 15, 2023. Since the terrible fighting in Sudan began in April 2023, more than a million people have fled to nearby countries. About 48,000 Chadians were forced to return to eastern Chad and about 378,000 Sudanese refugees are among them.

“The international response has been pitiful. We’re at 5% of the needed amount,” said Perriello, adding that the U.S. has already committed over a billion dollars in humanitarian relief to the conflict.

“We’ll be doing another nine-figure push around this,” he said, without elaborating.

Millions of people are now severely hungry because of the war, which has also caused the world’s biggest migration crisis and waves of killings and sexual violence based on ethnicity in the Darfur area of western Sudan.

Perriello said that the US will keep looking at what is happening on the ground and will take steps to make things more expensive as needed through sanctions and other methods. Because of the war, the US has put sanctions on the deputy head of the RSF, other big companies owned by both sides and other groups.

Perriello also said that peace talks probably wouldn’t start again on April 18, which is the date he had said before that Washington was looking at. Saudi Arabia and the US tried to make peace in Jeddah last year, but the talks did not go well.

“I don’t think we’ll see meetings in Jeddah on the 18th,” he said, adding that Washington is not waiting for formal talks to begin but that negotiations are happening every day.

“We would love frankly for the talks to have started last week. But what we know is the Saudis are committed to the talks, to talks that include a broader set of the key actors, and we are hoping that they will commit to a date.”

The UN says that 8 million people have left their homes and that 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, need help. The US says that both sides of the conflict have done crimes during the war.

Musings From Abroad

EU withdraws Niger diplomat after junta accuses it of mismanaging aid

Published

6 hours ago

November 24, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The European External Action Service (EEAS) has announced that the European Union would return its ambassador from Niger after the governing military in the nation questioned how an EU team handled humanitarian supplies intended for flood victims.

In a statement released on Friday, the junta in Niger accused the EU ambassador in the West African nation of distributing a 1.3 million euro flood relief grant to many foreign nongovernmental organisations in an opaque way and without working with the government.

Consequently, it mandated an audit of the fund’s administration.

“The European Union expresses its profound disagreement with the allegations and justifications put forward by the transitional authorities,” the EEAS said.

“Consequently, the EU has decided to recall its ambassador from Niamey for consultations in Brussels.”

Niger has been under military rule since the junta seized power in a 2023 coup.

Musings From Abroad

Mpox remains health emergency, WHO insists

Published

7 hours ago

November 24, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has insisted that the Mpox epidemic remains a public health emergency.

WHO first declared an emergency when a new strain of mpox spread from the severely affected Democratic Republic of the Congo to neighbouring countries in August.

The WHO Director-General has decided that the increase in mpox still qualifies as a public health emergency of worldwide significance after the WHO called a meeting of its Emergency Committee and followed its recommendations.

According to WHO, the decision was made in light of the growing number and ongoing geographic dispersion of cases, field operating difficulties, and the requirement to establish and maintain a coordinated response across nations and partners.

Mpox is a virus that is spread by close contact and usually manifests as pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms. Although it is typically minor, it can be fatal.

More than 1,000 suspected deaths and more than 46,000 suspected cases have been reported this year throughout Africa, primarily in Congo.

The WHO’s highest level of warning, known as a “public health emergency of international concern,” was previously used to describe a worldwide epidemic of a different type of mpox in 2022–2023.

This year’s notice was issued in response to the transmission of a novel viral variation known as clade Ib. Among other nations, cases of this variation have been verified in the UK, Germany, Sweden, and India.

Following criticism for moving too slowly on vaccinations, WHO approved Bavarian Nordic’s mpox vaccine in September and listed Japan’s KM Biologics vaccine for emergency use earlier this month.