PARIS
\nFrance and its allies Monday sought to drum up hundreds of millions in aid for Sudan a year since its civil war erupted, sparking one of the world\u2019s worst and most underfunded humanitarian crises.
\nTens of thousands of people have been killed and 8.5 million more have been forced to flee their homes since fighting broke out on April 15 last year between rival generals.
\nSudan is experiencing \u201cone of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory,\u201d with more people displaced inside the country than anywhere else in the world and a fast-growing hunger crisis, the United Nations says.
\nAt the international conference in Paris, France is seeking contributions from the international community, and attention to a crisis that officials say is being crowded out of the global conversation by ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
\n\u201cFor a year the Sudanese people have been the victims of a terrible war,\u201d French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said. Yet they had also suffered from \u201cbeing forgotten\u201d and \u201cindifference.\u201d
\n\u201cThis is the reason for our meetings today: to break the silence surrounding this conflict and mobilize the international community,\u201d he said in opening remarks.
\nThe conference, co-hosted by Germany and the European Union, was to include a ministerial meeting on political matters as well as a humanitarian meeting to raise funds for the crisis.
\nAid workers say a year of war has led to a catastrophe, but the world has turned away from the country of 48 million as conflict rages between Sudan\u2019s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force.
\nOnly five percent of the 3.8-billion-euro ($4.1 billion) target in the UN\u2019s latest humanitarian appeal had been funded ahead of the conference this year, according to the French foreign ministry.
\nAt its opening, a total of 840 million euros ($895 million) had been pledged after separate announcements from France, Germany, the European Union and the United States.
\nA diplomatic source, asking not to be named, said total donations could well top \u201ca billion euros\u201d by the end of the meeting.
\nOn the fifth anniversary of a fire that ravaged the French capital\u2019s Notre Dame cathedral, the charity Save the Children contrasted the lack of donations for Sudan with the international response to the Paris blaze.
\n\u201cIt is staggering that after a fire in which nobody died, donors from across the world were so moved to pledge funds to restore Notre Dame,\u201d said its country director in Sudan, Arif Noor.
\n\u201cMeanwhile, children in Sudan are left to fend for themselves as war rages around them, starvation and disease are on the increase and almost the entire country\u2019s child population has been out of school for a year.\u201d
\nFourteen million children need humanitarian assistance to survive, Save the Children says.
\nWill Carter, Sudan country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, earlier said civilians in Sudan were \u201cenduring starvation, mass sexual violence, large-scale ethnic killing, and executions.\u201d
\n\u201cMillions more are displaced, and yet the world continues to look the other way.\u201d
\nAn estimated 1.8 million people have fled Sudan \u2014 many to neighboring Chad, now also suffering a humanitarian crisis \u2014 and 6.7 million have been internally displaced.
\nThe ministerial meeting, behind closed doors, notably brings together representatives from Sudan\u2019s neighbors, as well as from Gulf nations and western powers, including the United States and Britain, along with regional organizations and the United Nations.
\nGerman Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock lamented that mediation efforts so far had failed to stem the conflict.
\n\u201cWe want to work toward better coordination,\u201d she said.
\nMeanwhile, actors from Sudan\u2019s civil society, including activists, unionists and journalists, were getting together to discuss \u201ca possible peace process, and what happens after the war,\u201d an official said.
\nLaetitia Bader, at NGO Human Rights Watch, said she hoped that the conference would deliver \u201ca very tough message\u201d to the belligerents, including threats of sanctions.
\nThe warring parties had blocked access for humanitarian assistance, pillaged foreign financial aid and targeted humanitarian workers in attacks, she said.
\n\u201cThis conference is very important, but it should not become an excuse to turn the page and forget about Sudan, again,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS France and its allies Monday sought to drum up hundreds of millions in aid for Sudan a year since its civil war erupted, sparking one of the world\u2019s worst and most underfunded humanitarian crises. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and 8.5 million more have been forced to flee their homes since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-400321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n