BERLIN: The international community pledged $1.8 billion at a conference to drum up support for Sudan on Thursday, in an effort to help the northeast African country battle economic woes after the ousting of long-time dictator Omar Al-Bashir.
"This conference opened a new chapter in the cooperation between Sudan and the international community to rebuild the country," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said at the video conference co-organised by Germany with Sudan, the European Union and the United Nations.
Some 50 countries and international organisations pledged a total of more than $1.8 billion, while the World Bank Group offered a grant of $400 million.
"This conference marks the start of a process, which will be followed by subsequent engagement by the international community to take stock of the progress made by Sudan in implementing reforms and to allow its partners to adapt their support accordingly," the conference's concluding statement said.
Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok called the conference "unprecedented" and said it laid a "solid foundation for us moving forward".
Sudan has been battling an economic crisis since Bashir was ousted by the military in April 2019 after months of street demonstrations against his three-decade rule.
Facing mounting cases of coronavirus, the country is now also grappling with acute medicine shortages.
Last week, dozens of pharmacists protested in the capital Khartoum holding banners that read: "Lack of drugs kills in silence" and "Medications are a right, not a privilege."
They urged Hamdok, who took office in August heading a post-Bashir transitional administration, to make funds available to import medicine.
Much of the aid pledged on Thursday will go towards economic initiatives, including Sudan's Family Support Program, which aims to provide assistance to millions of vulnerable people.
But direct help is also envisaged to enhance Sudan's efforts to tackle COVID-19.
The pledges included $356 million from the United States, which voiced optimism on Wednesday for a resolution in the coming weeks on Sudan's hopes to be delisted as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Washington first blacklisted Sudan in 1993.
Sudan's Foreign Minister Asma Abdalla told AFP on Tuesday that the government was finishing a deal to compensate victims of the simultaneous 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Once the deal is complete, she said she expected the US to move ahead with the delisting of Sudan "as soon as possible."
Germany said it would contribute 150 million euros ($168 million) and France 100 million euros.
Sudan's new transitional government has sought to repair the country's international standing, but it still faces daunting economic challenges more than a year after Bashir's ouster.
The International Monetary Fund says Sudan's economy "contracted by 2.5 percent in 2019 and is projected to shrink by eight percent in 2020" because of the pandemic.
Other challenges include galloping inflation, massive public debt and acute foreign currency shortages.
World pledges $1.8 billion for crisis-stricken Sudan
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World pledges $1.8 billion for crisis-stricken Sudan
- Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is desperate for foreign support
- Inflation topped an annual 100% last month and Sudan's currency has plunged to 141 to the dollar on the black market compared to 55 at the official rate
Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers
“We must regard the regime change in Syria without naivety,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors after Islamist-led forces toppled Assad last month, adding France would not abandon “freedom fighters, like the Kurds” who are fighting extremist groups in Syria.
UN: Over 30 million in need of aid in war-torn Sudan
- Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced
- Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: More than 30 million people, over half of them children, are in need of aid in Sudan after twenty months of war, the United Nations said on Monday.
The UN has launched a $4.2 billion call for funds, targeting 20.9 million people across Sudan from a total of 30.4 million people it said are in need in what it called “an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
Sudan has been torn apart and pushed to the brink of famine by the war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced, which, in addition to 2.7 million displaced before the war, has made Sudan the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
A further 3.3 million people have fled across Sudan’s borders to escape the war, which means over a quarter of the country’s pre-war population, estimated at around 50 million, are now uprooted.
Famine has already been declared in five areas in Sudan and is expected to take hold of five more areas by May, with 8.1 million people currently on the brink of mass starvation.
Sudan’s army-aligned government has denied there is famine, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
For much of the conflict, the UN has struggled to raise even a quarter of the funds it has targeted for its humanitarian response in the impoverished northeast African country.
Sudan has often been called the world’s “forgotten” war, overshadowed by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine despite the scale of the horrors inflicted upon civilians.
Jordanian FM discusses rebuilding Syria in Turkiye talks
DUBAI: The Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi highlighted on Tuesday the need to help Syria regain its security, stability, and sovereignty during discussions in Turkiye.
Talks also focused on providing support to the Syrian people and addressing the challenge of rebuilding the war-torn country.
He underscored Jordan's firm stance against any aggression on Syria’s sovereignty, rejecting Israeli attacks on Syrian territory.
The minister also expressed solidarity with Turkey, supporting its rights in confronting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation to ensure peace and stability.
Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.
Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers
- Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
- War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
