Steve Race
Main Page: Steve Race (Labour - Exeter)Department Debates - View all Steve Race's debates with the Department for International Development
(2 months ago)
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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.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
What discussions have the Government had with regional actors to bring to bear pressure on the RSF and the SAF to make sure that humanitarian access to the country is allowed to prevent the severe starvation that is ongoing?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this. We have had discussions with a number of bilateral partners both in the region and outside it. In fact, I discussed this with the USAID administrator last week when I was at the World Bank annuals, but we have of course had a number of discussions with regional actors as well—particularly countries in the Gulf, but beyond that as well. We know that many of them have relationships with individuals in Sudan, and we are really pushing for those to be used so that we see the aid delivery that is so desperately needed.