LIVE: Blinken Participates in UN Security Council Session on Sudan

The 9822nd meeting of the Security Council is called to order. The provisional agenda for this meeting is reports of the Secretary General on the Sudan and South Sudan. The agenda is adopted. Let me start by warmly welcoming the distinguished ministers and other high-level representatives present in the Security Council Chamber. Your presence today underscores the importance of the subject matter under discussion. In accordance with Rule 37 of the Council's Provisional Rules of Procedure, I invite the representatives of Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates to participate in this meeting. It is so decided. In accordance with Rule 39 of the Council's Provisional Rules of Procedure, I invite the following briefers to participate in the meeting. Ms. Ida Mosornu, Director, Operations and Advocacy Division, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Ms. Shana Lewis, Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities, Senior Advisor and Sudan Specialist. And Mr. Saad Baraldin, the Sultan of Dar Masaleh. It is so decided. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of Item 2 of the agenda. I'd like to give the floor to start to Ms. Ida Mosornu. I thank Mr. Baraldin for his briefing. I shall not make a statement in my capacity as the Secretary of State of the United States. And let me again thank each of our briefers for their powerful testimony. It's very important for this Council to hear it. To our fellow Council members, on December 19, 2018, six years ago today, the people of Sudan rose up to topple a dictator and reclaim their own futures. Who can forget the iconic image of Al-Asala, Lady Liberty of the Sudanese Revolution, standing on the roof of a car as she rallied her nation to a new path. One student protester put it this way, we grinned with freedom on our face. Half a dozen years later, we see on too many Sudanese faces, hunger, despair. The military takeover in 2021, the brutal fighting that erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, have derailed Sudan's transition to democracy and unleashed what is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Each day, as you heard from our briefers, brings new atrocities. Attacks on hospitals, on markets, displaced persons camps, summary executions, women and girls subjected to unspeakable sexual violence. We continue to see war crimes and crimes against humanity committed across vast parts of Sudan. In Zamzam, people have resorted to eating grass and peanut shells. By some estimates, a child there dies every two hours for lack of food. And the effects of this tragedy extend well beyond Sudan's borders. Over 3 million Sudanese have fled to neighboring countries. Outside actors are arming and supporting both parties, turning an internal power struggle into a conflict with global dimensions. In short, failure to act in Sudan threatens the peace and security that this Council is charged with preserving. The world cannot, must not, look away from the humanitarian catastrophe that's happening in Sudan on our watch and before our eyes. The United States has worked intensively with partners to provide relief to the Sudanese people, to end hostilities, to return Sudan to the path of democracy. We've been the largest provider of humanitarian aid to the people of Sudan. Today, we're announcing an additional roughly $200 million more for food, for shelter, for health care, bringing total U.S. support to more than $2.3 billion since fighting broke out last year. In August, the United States launched a new initiative, Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan, co-hosted by Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, in partnership with Egypt, with the UAE, with the African Union, and with the United Nations. ALPS, as it's called, built on earlier work in Jeddah and Paris. And it incorporates Sudanese civil society, including Sudanese women, who are both disproportionately harmed by the violence and essential to ending it. Alongside our partners, the United States successfully pressed Sudanese authorities to reopen major transportation arteries across Sudan, including, as you've heard, the Adrae border crossing into Darfur. These efforts have allowed to reach more than 3.5 million people across Sudan. We enabled humanitarian air operations to resume for the first time since the conflict began, meaning that a trip that might have taken two days over flooded and bombed-out roads can now take just one hour. With U.S. leadership, the U.N., and the Sudanese Ministry of Health, vaccinated over 1.4 million people against cholera, achieving 98 percent coverage in hard-hit areas. So, this is important progress. It is saving lives. But it is nowhere near enough. So, let me suggest today four ways that we can intensify our efforts. First, we have to get more aid, more relief where it's needed most, safely, rapidly, unhindered. In November, aid groups distributed 19,000 metric tons of assistance in Sudan. That was a four-fold increase since August. Yet, to even come close to meeting the immense demand, we need to double that 40,000 metric tons every single month. It means the international community has to give more to support those in Sudan, as well as refugees in countries like Egypt and Chad that are so generously hosting them. To deliver that assistance, we must finalize and sustain humanitarian corridors that allow aid to get into contested areas. 31 World Food Program trucks are now rolling toward a part of Khartoum that have been cut off from humanitarian support since April of 2023. We have to build on this momentum and regularize this corridor, as well as the ones into al-Fashr, into Jazira, into al-Obaid. Assistance must also be permitted not only to cross the border into Sudan, but to cross territory that is held by the two sides. Both parties have created obstacles, whether it's bombs or bullets or bureaucracy. Lives depend on this. It depends on flowing aid freely across lines of control. We have to ensure that aid can be dispensed more efficiently. Sudanese authorities have allowed the UN to open three new humanitarian hubs and let international aid workers move freely about Sudan. Standing up a fourth hub in central Darfur Zalinge is also vital. It's time for the United Nations and humanitarian community to activate these facilities and scale up aid delivery as soon, as quickly as possible. Second, this Council must press both warring parties to protect civilians, to stop atrocities, to end the fighting. The Alps Group has proposed a compliance mechanism, a committee with representation from the SAF, from the RSF, from the international community, to ensure that each side upholds international law and their commitments under the Jeddah Declaration. As I said a year ago, when determining that both the SAF and the RSF had committed war crimes and that the RSF had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, specifically designating the atrocities against the mausoleum described by the sultan as ethnic cleansing, the United States will use every tool, including further determinations and sanctions, to prevent abuses and hold perpetrators accountable. We encourage other partners to implement similar sanctions bilaterally, multilaterally, on individuals, on organizations whose actions worsen the conflict. Third, the Council must make clear to the outside actors fanning the flames in Sudan that this conduct cannot continue. Last month, the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone put forward a resolution that called for a nationwide ceasefire, increased civilian protection, and the unhindered flow of aid. Fourteen members, including the United States, voted in favor of this resolution. One member, Russia, vetoed. They called the resolution, and I quote, absurd and unacceptable. Here's what's absurd and unacceptable. Any country professing to care about African nations while continuing to fuel Africa's largest war. So, to the foreign sponsors sending drones, missiles, mercenaries, enough. To those profiting off the illicit oil and gold trade that fund this conflict, enough. Use your resources to ease Sudanese suffering, not deepen it. Use your influence to end the war, not perpetuate it. Don't just claim to be concerned about Sudan's future. Prove it. Finally, we must all continue to support the Sudanese people as they work to revive this transition to inclusive, civilian-led, democratic governance. In September, the African Union reiterates call for Sudan to return to a constitutional and civilian-led order. The United States endorses this call. This entire Council should do so as well. To further advance the restoration of civilian governance, to help realize the aspirations of the Sudanese people, I'm announcing today that the State Department will work with Congress to provide $30 million to empower civil society and elevate civilian voices in the dialogue about Sudan's future. Even as the bombs continue to fall, the people of Sudan are not waiting to leave. Across the country, they're banding together to support one another and to rebuild their nation. Volunteers, many of them young people, are preparing food at local soup kitchens in Darfur. They're offering coloring books to traumatized children. They're running health clinics. They're repairing collapsed electrical lines. There's even a word for the selflessness that these citizens are demonstrating daily, a deep-rooted Sudanese tradition called Nafir. Nafir is a sense of solidarity, a commitment to mutual aid, a community springing into action in times of need. It translates literally as a call to mobilize. So, as a Council, we too should answer that call. We too should mobilize. We have a responsibility, a responsibility to stop the suffering, to end this war, to support the Sudanese people so that, in the words of that protester, freedom is once again on their faces. I ask you, all of us, let's seize this moment. And I thank you. I resume my function as President of the Council. And I now give the floor to His Excellency, Mr. José de Ayasca, Minister of Government of Ecuador.