Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and Mark Simmonds

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Simmonds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. As he will be aware and as I stated earlier, the Sudanese Government made a request to the UN, and an investigation is now ongoing. We will be watching the thoroughness of that investigation extremely carefully, and will decide what to do once we have received the results.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Does the Minister agree that the Government of North Sudan must allow the safe, unhindered access of international aid to areas that so far have been inaccessible in order to ensure full accessibility for everybody and an end to bloodshed?

[Mark Simmonds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue. To reduce and negate the suffering in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, it is essential that we enable humanitarian access to get to these areas as fast as possible, but it is extremely challenging. She might be aware that an agreement was reached in August between the tripartite—the UN, the AU and the Arab League—and signed by the North Sudanese Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North to allow humanitarian access. We need to ensure that that agreement is implemented as fast as possible to alleviate the suffering.