Sudan: Operational Restrictions on Humanitarian Actors

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord. I have met them, and I think they are fantastic. They are not required to meet the registration requirements of the RSF, so they are able to operate more flexibly. We have increased our funding to them for that reason.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, those of us who have loved and visited Sudan are devastated. I really welcome this Question from my noble friend Lady Brown. What actions are the Government taking through the United Nations and other international platforms to improve accountability for attacks on humanitarian workers in Sudan, and what is being done to ensure that women are not continually raped as a weapon of war?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We increased our funding to victims of sexual violence, which we announced some months ago. That was the right thing to do, and we may need to do more. As for what we are doing multilaterally, we are the penholder at the UN. We have used our role at the Security Council, and noble Lords will know the difficulties with that at the moment. We have been more successful at the Human Rights Council and secured unanimous support for statements there. We have also had to create our own multilateral entities such as the coalition for atrocity prevention and justice to really keep a focus on this and to be more agile and outspoken where perhaps UN processes have proved difficult. We will continue to do this. One thing that may help us avoid seeing a repeat of what happened in El Fasher is a relentless focus on what is happening in Sudan and really holding those responsible—for committing those atrocities but also for supporting them—to account.