Baroness Cox calls on the government to provide further humanitarian assistance in Sudan, ahead of her question in the Lords on Tuesday
Sudan, Africa's largest nation, is facing many grave challenges. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which brought a cease-fire to a war responsible for two million dead and four million displaced, was followed by the conflict in Darfur, with another horrendous toll of suffering.
Now, the CPA may be in jeopardy. Visiting many locations in Sudan earlier this year, we found widespread anxiety that the north will not welcome the referendum, which could give the south the freedom to secede. When we asked southerners which way they would be likely to vote, they said they expect an overwhelming mandate for separation – not for reasons of wealth and power, but for religious freedom (from sharia) and to preserve their African identity and culture. Therefore, they fear that war may erupt again – directly instigated by the north or through surrogates who can destabilise and terrorise the south and the 'marginalised areas' including the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and Abyie. Even now, the notorious Lords' Resistance Army, which generated a massive toll of death, displacement and abduction of children in Northern Uganda, is killing and abducting civilians in many parts of southern Sudan.
An additional toll of suffering is created by the legacy of war - a devastated infrastructure and lack of resources to supply essentials: clean water; education for a 'lost generation' of children who could receive no schooling due to constant bombardment; basic health care. Southern Sudan has some of the worst mortality statistics in the world. One in five children will die before their fifth birthday, one in seven mothers will die in childbirth and over four in five citizens have no access to immunisation, rendering them vulnerable to killer diseases such as TB, polio, tetanus and diphtheria. The plight of the Beja people in Eastern Sudan is reportedly even worse.
Another war would be unimaginably catastrophic for people who have already suffered so much for so long. Therefore, the international community must use every means at its disposal to support the CPA, ensuring that its provisions are fulfilled - and to increase humanitarian aid. Without urgent and adequate assistance, the appalling scenarios could be the end of a peace as has already been achieved at such cost.
Or it could escalate peace of the dead – those who continue to die despite the absence of war because we, who could do more to help, are failing them.
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