Ted Chabayan, the deputy executive director of UNICEF,
joins me in the studio.
Lot of civilians when we speak to people in Khartoum,
which is very hard because think since January mobiles have
been pretty intermittent.
The Rabbit support force controlling much of the Internet in
their areas too
say it's a war that they really can't get much
attention about.
With the conflict in Israel dominating a lot of headlines,
can you describe what the situation is,
particularly for children, for the work you're doing with UNICEF
there?
Look, it's a it's a catastrophe of unprecedented
consequences in Sudan. It's the world's largest child displacement
crises in the world, 4.6 million children displaced
and we have almost 4 million children
that are suffering from acute malnutrition,
a million of which are suffering from severe acute malnutrition
which is life threatening.
And virtually every single Sudanese child,
19,000,000 children are out of school.
We're at risk of losing
a whole generation. And these are not just numbers,
each of those children is impacted.
Personally, when I was in Sudan in in June,
I I met with several of these children
and their whole lives has been turned upside down by
this conflict.
It's interesting you say that when you go back to
what,
20 years or so ago,
Darfur we had, a whole generation became known as the
lost boys of Sudan.
From analysts I speak to,
from those charity workers I've spoken to on the ground,
they say what we're seeing now in terms of the
scale of the conflict is worse than back in
2003.
Clearly atrocities committed by tribes related to the rapid support
force now.
But just tell me first of all how you get
continue to humanitarian aid in.
I've speak to a lot of people who say,
for example, trying to wire transfers to family,
almost impossible to get food out there.
So. So firstly, let me say that the situation is
as bad as it was
during the first Darfur crisis 20 years ago,
but the difference is it's forgotten.
This time we're not talking about Sudan.
And yet we're seeing the same pattern,
the same ethnic targeting, the same displacement,
the same killing of civilians.
And what UNICEF is doing is using all means possible
to try to access the population.
We've had one of the first UN mission back into
Khartoum to deliver
health and nutrition supplies to the population to support the
few remaining health centers that are there on the ground.
We're working cross-border from Chad into both South Darfur and
N Darfur to try to reach the population there.
And we're doing a lot of our work cross line.
And what we're calling for is for both parties to
respect international humanitarian law,
to allow access without precondition and to respect humanitarian workers
so that we can continue to do our
our job for children. In addition,
we need funding. UNICEF is appealing for
$840 million
to support its work in Sudan.
It is only 25 percent funded for that work.
In neighbouring Chad it's even worse.
We're appealing for $55 million and we're only 11%
funded because of all of the refugees.
All of the because of all the refugees,
almost 1,000,000 refugees in Chad,
500,000 Sudanese and some Chad and returnees coming back in
the last year.
Give me a sense of what you think
realistically tomorrow could achieve. The main parties,
they're absent. Firstly, we appreciate that the government of France,
Germany and the EU are convening
this conference on Sudan, and the first objective is to
generate resources, to mobilize resources so that humanitarians can continue
to do their work.
But we also need to have discussions about humanitarian access.
We need to talk about international humanitarian law and respect
for humanitarian principles.
And in the morning, many of the special envoys that
are focused on the
crisis in Sudan will be meeting to look at a
coordinated political way forward.
There's a number of envoys working on the crisis.
They need to work in a coordinated manner.
But ultimately it's about the Sudanese party putting their people
1st and their ego second.
Briefly, it's it's it's quite a hard,
it's not quite a proxy war,
but it's very complicated. When you look at the Saudis,
the Egyptians effectively supporting the army,
you have the rapid support force,
which have gold reserves in Darfur.
Now you have the Russians,
the old Wagner force supporting them.
You also have a facility that they're able to use
in the UAE to to transfer this cash.
There's a sense of there's a lot of entrenched sides
here that need to be part of these
talks in some way. The point we're making is any
party that has influence over either the government or the
rapid support forces needs to exercise that influence so that
we bring the parties to the table together so that
they respect human rights and internationally humanitarian law.
And so that they allow access,
including the blackout and telecommunications that you referred to,
without which without communication we can't do our work.
So indeed there are many parties that can influence the
the the Sudanese parties.
Ultimately it's about the Sudanese parties,
however, putting their people first very briefly.
But it's important. Do you,
unlike in Gaza at the moment,
do your teams, UNICEF, feel relatively safe working on the
ground right now?
Look,
the answer is
not enough. They they are doing everything they can.
We haven't faced the level of death that we've seen
in Gaza among humanitarian,
but clearly people are putting their lives at risk to
make a difference for Sudanese children.
Ted Japan, thank you so much for talking to us.
Ted Japan, the deputy executive director of UNICEF.
And good luck tomorrow.