In the face of the worsening humanitarian crisis and persistent violence targeting civilians in Sudan, the European Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib, as well as 28 countries, urged the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied groups, on Thursday 14 August, to respect the commitments made in the ‘Jeddah Declaration’ of May 2023.
“We urge all parties to demonstrate their compliance with this commitment by guaranteeing the immediate, unconditional, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to populations in need as well as protecting and preventing violations against civilians, in particular women and children and including humanitarian personnel and civilian infrastructure at all times”, they stressed in a joint statement, calling specifically for the lifting of the siege of El Fasher to allow a humanitarian pause in the fighting.
Deaths of humanitarian aid workers on the rise. “Aid workers are not a target”, Ms Lahbib reiterated on the X network on Thursday 21 August, reacting to new attacks that have recently occurred in the world’s most conflict-ridden areas.
In the space of just a few days, a World Food Programme (WFP) convoy was targeted in North Darfur (Sudan) and a member of the Ethiopian Red Cross was beaten to death in the Amhara region of Ethiopia.
Nearly 400 aid workers were killed in 2024, mainly in Gaza, Sudan and South Sudan, and according to partial figures published on 14 August, 2025 could prove to be an even deadlier year. (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)