We welcome the announcement by Foreign Ministers of the Sudan Core Group at the Human Rights Council on 26 February, and applaud the UK’s role in driving it. The commitment to establish a coalition to ‘prevent further atrocities in Sudan and support the Sudanese people to lay the foundations for eventual justice’ is a vital and overdue step in the international response to one of the world’s most devastating crises: one that we have collectively long called for.

We share the collective outrage at the scale of suffering inflicted on Sudanese civilians by all parties to the conflict. It demands urgent, coordinated, and sustained action. The UN Fact-Finding Mission’s findings on El Fasher, laying bare the full horror of the Rapid Support Forces’ 18-month siege, and the ‘risk of further genocidal violence’, make clear that the time for half-measures has passed. The Sudanese people have waited far too long for the international community to match its words with action. As one of our Sudanese allies stated, “It won’t bring back those we’ve lost but the international momentum is so critical right now.”

The Berlin Conference on 15 April, convening as the crisis enters its fourth year, provides the coalition’s first major opportunity. We urge the UK, members of the Coalition and co-hosts of the conference to bring meaningful collective prioritisation to the distinct need to protect civilians and prevent further atrocities in addition to necessary efforts to secure unfettered aid access and a halt to supply of weapons and military support to the warring parties. We urge members of the Coalition to make clear to the warring parties that they will face swift and meaningful consequences for a failure to end ongoing atrocities, including widespread sexual violence, deliberate attacks on civilians, humanitarian workers and local responders, as will those who aid and abet such actions. Sudanese civil society and the voices of survivors must be at the heart of discussions in Berlin and the work of the Coalition, not consulted on the margins.

Drawing on our collective expertise and our connections to Sudanese civil society, our organisations stand ready to support this initiative. We hope this marks a sincere turning point. We look forward to working with the Coalition and its members to raise the ceiling of collective ambition and support bold follow-through to protect civilians and prevent further atrocities across all of Sudan.

Statement signatories:

Alliance for Peacebuilding
CSW (Christian Solidarity Worldwide)
CAFOD
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Nonviolent Peaceforce
PAEMA
Plan International UK
Protection Approaches
Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART)
Human Rights Watch
Waging Peace
Women4Sudan