On Friday 1 March, the EU High Representative, Josep Borrell, and the Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, strongly condemned the recent de facto ban by the Sudanese authorities on the delivery of cross-border humanitarian aid from Chad to Sudan to civilians in areas “suffering at the hands of both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)”.
“This is a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law”, they stressed in a joint statement, reminding all parties to the conflict that the denial of humanitarian assistance can amount to a war crime under international law.
Furthermore, according to the High Representative and the Commissioner, the ban directly contradicts the commitments made by the parties to the conflict in the Jeddah Declaration to protect civilians and facilitate increased humanitarian aid.
They reaffirmed the immediate need to guarantee safe, unimpeded, and uninterrupted humanitarian access within the country as well as across international borders. “The window to avert the worst is closing rapidly. Sudan is on a verge of a large-scale famine”, they insisted. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)