Sudan and South Sudan

(asked on 26th January 2015) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of (1) violence in Sudan and South Sudan over the past three months, (2) reports of aerial bombardment of civilian populations, (3) the provision of arms, (4) the number of children recruited into militias, (5) the report by the United Nations Security Council of crimes committed against children, and (6) the number of unaccompanied and separated children identified by UNICEF since the conflict began.


This question was answered on 2nd February 2015

Since the end of the rainy season we have noted an increase in fighting in both Sudan and South Sudan. We are deeply concerned at aerial bombings in the Two Areas (South Kordofan and Blue Nile) of Sudan, and have condemned the recent attack on a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres. Recent evidence of violations of the UN arms embargo in Darfur will inform our approach to upcoming discussions on the renewal of the mandate for the sanctions regime. EU arms embargoes continue to remain in place on both countries.

Children continue to be seriously affected by the conflicts in both countries, and we are particularly concerned by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) estimates that since the outbreak of conflict in December 2013 almost 7,000 children have been separated from their families and 12,000 used by armed groups in South Sudan alone. South Sudan attended the UK-led roundtable on Children and Armed Conflict in New York in September 2014, and we agree with the Secretary General’s recommendation in his report of 11 December 2014 that the Government of South Sudan should develop and implement a strategy for the demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration of children. As we highlighted in last year’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Human Rights Report, the Government of Sudan is also yet to fully implement their Child Act (enacted in 2010), which prohibits recruitment of children to armed groups in Darfur and the Two Areas.

Reticulating Splines