Ellie Chowns
Main Page: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)Department Debates - View all Ellie Chowns's debates with the Department for International Development
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
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Anneliese Dodds
My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important issue; again, I know that she has experience in this area. The UK Government have repeatedly condemned atrocities and called out human rights violations, especially conflict-related sexual violence committed by parties to the conflict. We have called that out in the UN Human Rights Council and the Security Council. We are also supporting fact-finding missions. I was pleased to secure the support of even more countries for the important UN fact-finding mission, because the voices of women, girls and indeed boys who are being subjected to sexual violence must be heard and there cannot be impunity for that.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The brutality of violence in Sudan, and the disruption of agricultural systems and trade routes, have led to the extreme food insecurity that we have seen. Does the Minister share my admiration for the local emergency room organisations that are doing what they can to support local people? What will she do to ensure that international aid can get through to those actors on the ground? In the absence of international agencies or international forces, they are all that is there. What will she do to ensure that aid can continue to get across the border from Chad?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for referring to the emergency response rooms; I had a meeting with a number of people involved with those mechanisms. We are talking about ordinary Sudanese people who have taken extremely brave steps to make sure that they are supporting their local communities with desperately needed humanitarian aid—food, water and other supplies that they need right now. As a Co-operative party MP, I believe that they have shown the best of mutual aid, and incredible courage at the same time. The UK is working with the UN on that, because we need to make sure that those individuals are supported in their incredibly important work. On the subject of aid from Chad, we will continue to push to make sure that the Adré border crossing is kept open and that there are no bureaucratic and administrative obstacles to aid getting through from there.