South Sudan

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) for securing this important and timely debate and for his diligence on international humanitarian and human rights matters. It is a pleasure to speak after the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), who made a powerful speech.

The Department for International Development’s aid strategy was set out just over a year ago, and last week we had the publication of its bilateral and multilateral development reviews. What is clear in the strategy and the reviews is that in addressing poverty we also need to address conflict as a driver of and sometimes a consequence of poverty. In many ways, South Sudan is tragically a prime example of how the new aid strategy could be applied to good effect. The civil war that blights South Sudan today began almost exactly three years ago. Since then, we have seen numerous ceasefires brokered, the UN continue its peacekeeping programme in the region and a formal peace agreement, but none of those measures has succeeded in preventing the sustained violence that has already been described. In many ways, it is one of the least well publicised humanitarian crises of our time, which makes today’s debate especially welcome.

Even before South Sudan became a sovereign nation, the foundations for the new country were shaky. Decades of war in Sudan and across the region had caused widespread poverty, inequality and instability. The infrastructure needed to develop a new country was not there. That has made it incredibly difficult for humanitarian missions to deliver aid effectively to all parts of the country and it has held back the country’s economy.

The scale of the humanitarian crisis was set out fully by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle in his opening speech. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 1.87 million people have been internally displaced. As he said, more than 1 million people have fled to neighbouring countries to escape the violence. That equates to around one quarter of the population of the country having to uproot themselves and leave their homes because of the civil war. More than 200,000 people are living in UN protection of civilians sites.

As my hon. Friend said, food insecurity is a massive challenge. Almost 5 million people are food insecure in South Sudan. According to the World Food Programme and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, up to 4 million of them are severely food insecure, and the numbers are going up as a consequence of the conflict. As both speakers have said, DFID is playing an active and positive role, and I pay tribute to the role that the United Kingdom has been playing. DFID has been working in South Sudan since 2006 to try to address the humanitarian situation and establish the capacity for future development, including through the South Sudan peace building programme, the South Sudan recovery fund and the South Sudan service delivery programme. Crucially, there is also the support that we and others are providing to the refugees in neighbouring countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. The UK is the second largest bilateral donor in South Sudan after the USA. The presence we have in South Sudan, despite the conflict and the challenges we face, is crucial.

I echo what my hon. Friend said about education and how vital it is that even in these challenging circumstances, the needs of children in South Sudan are not forgotten. As he said, it is vital that we do not have a lost generation. When the Minister responds, it would be good to hear about the programmes that the Government are supporting for education in South Sudan—particularly the education of girls and young women. We have seen a renewed global focus on education this year with the launch of Education Cannot Wait, which looks at the needs of refugees and other people living in emergency situations. Last week, the International Development Committee, as part of our education inquiry, visited Jordan and Lebanon to see for ourselves the impact of the Syria conflict on the education of children and young people in those countries—both the refugees and those from the host communities.

Despite the great efforts of Governments, including our own, we know there have been extraordinary violations of human rights, as my hon. Friend set out so powerfully in his opening speech. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to monitor and report human rights violations? In particular, when such violations arise, how are we going to bring the perpetrators to justice? As has been said, the UN Secretary-General’s special adviser on genocide, Adama Dieng, has already given stark warnings about the risk of genocide. What are the Government doing with partners to ensure that the situation does not become a genocide? What representations are we making to the South Sudanese Government? There is, as the right hon. Member for Meriden said, a shared responsibility. That continent had the Rwanda genocide in 1994 and the conflict in Darfur more recently, and it is vital that we learn lessons as a country from such events.

At the height of the conflict, DFID and the Foreign Office had to limit staffing numbers in the country for understandable reasons. Can the Minister tell us whether he sees a point at which the Government will be able to restore some of the reductions in DFID and other staff working to relieve the humanitarian crisis faced by the people of South Sudan? We know that many NGOs have similarly had to reduce their staffing numbers. For example, Médecins sans Frontières told the International Development Committee of the ongoing security risk faced by its hospitals and other humanitarian outposts. In written evidence to the Committee, it told us that during the most recent surge in violence, two of MSF’s clinics in Leer were looted and they have not been able to reopen because of the ongoing insecurity. What can we do as a country and what are the Government doing in conjunction with other multilateral donors to ensure the safety of humanitarian staff working in the region?

My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle set out some of the concerns and issues with UNMISS in the region. Reports have raised serious concerns. I have been told of a recent incident at the Terrain hotel. The UN peacekeeping mission was only a few miles away from the hotel and yet it failed repeatedly to respond to emergency calls from civilians. As has already been said, UNMISS has struggled to fulfil its mandate for a number of reasons, but lack of co-operation from the Government of South Sudan is a major factor. Does the Minister think there is more that we could do, perhaps via the United Nations Security Council, to raise these questions?

Finally, as with all conflicts of this nature, in the end we need a diplomatic political solution that brings peace. I ask the Minister what more can be done to bring an end to this conflict through diplomatic means. Next Tuesday the International Development Committee will take oral evidence on the situation in South Sudan, including from the Minister. I very much welcome today’s debate and look forward to hearing contributions from other Members and the responses from the Minister, the SNP Front Bench and my own Front Bench. As my hon. Friend said, we face a humanitarian crisis, a set of challenges that relate to human rights and justice, and a fragile young country that desperately needs a peaceful, diplomatic solution.