Statement by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, on the opening of the Jeddah talks - Sunday, 29 October 2023 [EN/AR]

The Jeddah talks cannot have started soon enough.

More than six months since the start of the crisis in Sudan, the humanitarian tragedy in the country continues to unfold unabated.

Thousands of people have been killed or injured. One in nine people has fled their homes. Nearly one-third of the population could soon become food insecure. The health system is in tatters, with the specter of disease outbreaks, including cholera, looming. A generation of children risk missing out on a full education. We are billions of dollars short of the funding we need.

The humanitarian community has done its utmost to meet these ever-skyrocketing needs. Since mid-April, we have reached 3.6 million people with some form of aid – but this is just 20 per cent of people we are hoping to help.

Aid workers are hamstrung by fighting, insecurity and red tape, making the operating environment in Sudan extremely challenging.

This is why these Jeddah talks are critical: We need the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to break the bureaucratic logjam. We need them to fully adhere to international humanitarian law. We need them to secure safe, sustained and unhindered access to people in need, be it in Darfur, Khartoum or the Kordofans.

In light of the colossal humanitarian crisis in Sudan, my office, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, will facilitate the humanitarian track of these negotiations.

I welcome the resumption of these talks and am grateful to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States for co-hosting them.

These talks are a decisive opportunity to let the people of Sudan know that they are not forgotten, that we take our international responsibilities seriously, and that we are committed to ensuring they receive the care, protection and life-saving assistance that they need.