Sudan
Debate between Lord Bellingham and Liz McInnes(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Liz McInnes
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to comment on the bravery of people who work for our NGOs, including his wife, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. She is an indomitable woman. We had a debate here a while ago on South Sudan, and my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe talked about South Sudan being the most dangerous place in the world for aid workers—in our discussion on Sudan, we must not forget the work that goes on in South Sudan as well. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that timely intervention.
I agree with the chair of the all-party parliamentary group, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk, that we need more action and a strong resolution from the UN. We are grateful to the UN for halting the drawdown of UNAMID. When my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and I were in Sudan, we visited Darfur and spoke to people involved in UNAMID, the police and the military, who told us their concerns about the drawdown, but this crisis has necessitated the UN’s keeping UNAMID as it is. Rather than a policy of no further drawdown, does the Minister think we should engage in talks about increasing UNAMID’s presence? I am interested to hear her thoughts on that.
The two final points I want to make are on the involvement of the ICC and the investigation of war crimes, which I think have been mentioned by everybody who has spoken. We absolutely have to hold the TMC to account for what has happened in recent months. There are also the outstanding ICC charges against President Bashir for war crimes and human rights abuses. All these issues need to be investigated, and we in the UK should put pressure on Sudan to ensure that those investigations take place.
Sir Henry Bellingham
For the last, I think, 10 years, General Omar al-Bashir has avoided travel to countries where he might be arrested, having been indicted for war crimes by the ICC. Now is surely the time when he must be taken to The Hague to face those serious charges regarding crimes against humanity.