PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Conflict in Sudan - 8 September 2026 (Commons/Westminster Hall)

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the conflict in Sudan.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I am pleased to have secured this debate, because it comes at a critical moment. The war in Sudan is now entering its fourth year. It has been labelled the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, yet for some reason it still barely registers in political discourse. Last week, a humanitarian convoy delivering lifesaving aid to Kadugli, where communities are at risk of famine, was attacked. A UN report has found that sexual violence is widespread and is being used as a weapon of war in Sudan, and that at least 13 victims have died, mostly after brutal gang rapes, with the youngest victim only nine years old.

For millions of Sudanese people, the war is a daily struggle for survival. I suspect that many people in this country could not explain why a paramilitary force operating in Sudan stands accused of genocide. The gap between the scale of what is happening and the attention that it receives is part of the reason why it has been allowed to go on for so long. Just now, I was listening to the Foreign Secretary’s statement on the banning of Israeli goods that come from illegal settlements. The main Chamber was packed, and rightly so, but I would argue that the crisis in Sudan requires the same attention.

The United Nations puts the number of people in Sudan who need humanitarian assistance this year at 33.7 million, which is more than in any other country on earth. There are 90 million people displaced inside Sudan, and more than 4 million have left it entirely, which is equivalent to the population of Greater Manchester. More areas are in or at risk of famine than anywhere else in the world. However, the UN’s own response plan for Sudan is funded at only 40% of what is needed this year. That shortfall already has a body count: hospitals in Darfur have closed for want of money to keep them running, cutting off tens of thousands of displaced people from anything resembling care.

During the summer recess, I took part in a parliamentary delegation to Egypt, where I saw at first hand the impact of Sudan’s conflict on the region. My visit brought it home to me that this is a regional crisis—one that cannot be contained within Sudan’s borders.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She is absolutely right that it is a timely moment. The quintet is to make a good-offices visit to Khartoum from tomorrow. Does she agree, first, that the UK Government have to continue supporting the diplomatic work of the quintet and, secondly, that the Government will continue to make a difference by sanctioning those individuals involved in facilitating this dreadful civil war?

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I urge the Government to listen to his comments and to continue to place that pressure.

Egypt is the single largest host of people fleeing the conflict, with about 1.5 million refugees, which places significant pressure on communities and services already stretched thin. At a UNHCR registration centre, I heard directly from Sudanese refugees, including elderly women and young children, some of whom had travelled roughly 1,400 km from the Sudanese border just to register—the same distance as from London to Rome. Their journeys underscore the human reality of displacement. They are not just another statistic; they are families who walked away from everything they owned, because staying had become more dangerous than leaving.

Egypt has played a prominent role in stabilising the region, but its ability to manage the crisis alone is reaching breaking point. The question for Britain is not just how much we spend on humanitarian assistance, but whether our support reaches people where they are and where the need is greatest. The registration centre I visited is facing immense pressure: some 4,000 refugees a day against capacity built for 4,000 a month. UNHCR’s Egypt operation has a funding requirement of $133.5 million for 2026, but was only a quarter funded by the end of April, leaving a gap of more than $99 million. That operation is currently receiving no UK funding at all, despite the UK’s own record showing what effective support can achieve. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office-funded North Africa migrant and development project, delivered through the International Organisation for Migration, has reached more than 22,000 migrants and host community members in Egypt since 2024.

I was pleased and privileged to join my hon. Friend on the delegation to Egypt. At the event at which we met Sudanese refugees, what most struck me was the scale of medical need. Almost every participant at the roundtable was in need of a doctor or medical support, or had family similarly in need. Does my hon. Friend agree that the aid we are providing to the conflict is not just about what is happening in Sudan, but about the people who leave Sudan for Egypt and elsewhere, and the medical need that they have in those countries?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The medical challenge that people were facing came across strongly in our conversations. We must ensure that aid reaches the right people in the right place in the right way. That point cut through; I hope others will listen to it.

Alongside our humanitarian duty, this matters to Britain because the consequences of Sudan’s war are already being felt across the region and beyond. With little prospect of peace or self-reliance in Sudan or the countries hosting its refugees, more people are being forced into dangerous onward journeys towards Europe. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of Sudanese refugees arriving in Europe rose by 232%. In 2025, Sudanese nationals made up 11% of small boat arrivals to the United Kingdom. Funding refugee protection, registration and support for host communities is the right thing to do. It is also how we prevent further displacement and exploitation and stop people being forced to make these journeys later.

But funding is only part of the answer. Aid can mitigate the consequences of the conflict, but it cannot end it. However well the registration centre I visited with colleagues is funded, it will still be processing the consequences of decisions made by armed men many hundreds of miles away. Only a political solution can resolve that.

The war did not begin as, and has never really been, a contest between two equally matched armies with equally clean records. The Rapid Support Forces are the direct descendants of the Janjaweed militia responsible for the Darfur genocide of the early 2000s, absorbed into the Sudanese state rather than disbanded. When fighting broke out between the force and the regular army in April 2023, it inherited the old militia’s methods along with its personnel. The United Nations fact-finding mission concluded in February this year that the killing of civilians in El Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces last October met the legal definition of genocide. Tonight, in a city called El Obeid, the same force is massing outside the walls in very much the configuration that it used in El Fasher. The United States Department of State has already warned that mass atrocities may follow if El Obeid falls too.

I want to be clear that the responsibility is not one-sided. Sudan’s regular army has bombed populated areas indiscriminately, and militias fighting alongside it have carried out abuses of their own territory that they have retaken, but there is a difference between that record and what happened at El Fasher. That difference is exactly why the two sides cannot simply be told to agree a ceasefire and be trusted to keep it

I raise that history because it explains why calls for a ceasefire keep failing. It is not a dispute that ends with both sides simply agreeing to stop. It also explains why the international effort to end this war has gone almost nowhere. The Quad—the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—published a peace road map almost a year ago. It has achieved almost nothing, because Saudi Arabia and Egypt want the Sudanese army preserved as the backbone of the state, while the UAE wants its political role dismantled. Those positions were never reconciled, only written around, and Sudan’s own Government formally rejected the road map at the Security Council in February. That rejection barely registered here.

Nor is the damage confined to Sudan and Egypt. Chad has closed its borders, after cross-border drone attacks killed its own soldiers. Fighting has spread into Ethiopian territory around the Blue Nile. While the world’s attention is elsewhere, Russia has been negotiating a 25-year naval facility at Port Sudan in exchange for weapons—a foothold on one of the most consequential trade corridors on earth, secured while the country hosting it burns.

A war that we are content to fund our way around rather than to resolve is a war that keeps generating problems that Britain will eventually have to deal with on someone else’s terms. As the penholder for Sudan at the UN Security Council, the UK has significant diplomatic leverage. The Government must use it, maintaining pressure for humanitarian troops, for civilian protection, for unimpeded humanitarian access and for a civilian-led political process, including through the Berlin principles agreed earlier this year.

That leverage will carry more weight if we are not undercut by our own arms licensing decisions. Evidence from United Nations experts and from Amnesty International has repeatedly linked the United Arab Emirates to weapons reaching the Rapid Support Forces. Hundreds of millions of pounds of UK arms licences to the UAE have been approved during this war. I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that those licences are being tested properly against the risk that British-made equipment will end up fuelling, however indirectly, the same conflict that we are asking the Security Council to end.

I also urge the Government to reaffirm the commitment they made earlier this year to the UK’s £146 million of humanitarian funding for Sudan, while extending meaningful funding to organisations on the ground, including for the UNHCR’s work with refugees in neighbouring countries, rather than focusing solely on Sudan itself. Britain has both the means and the diplomatic standing to act. We can help to ensure that people displaced by this war receive the protection and support that they need, while using our influence to address the conflict that forced them from their homes in the first place. Many of them want to return to their home: I heard that loud and clear.

I think of the women I met at the registration centre who had walked 1,400 km simply to queue in the baking heat, just to be counted. The least this House can do is make sure that they are not forgotten, and the least that our Government can do is recognise the scale and impact of this humanitarian crisis.

Order. I remind hon. Members that they should bob if they wish to be called. If Members can stick to five minutes each, it will be much appreciated: that will enable everyone to speak.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan), not just for her thoughtful contribution but for securing this debate.

It is so important that we take every opportunity we can to shine a light on this conflict. The International Development Committee, of which I am a member, has relentlessly sought to bring forward evidence to enable discussion of the issue, but we have failed to get the widespread coverage and attention that it most certainly deserves. I recognise the focus that the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), brought to the conflict during her time in office; the same applies to the former development Minister, the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). I am sure that the new Minister, whom I welcome to her post, will do likewise. Nevertheless, as I said, Sudan remains chronically under-reported.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nutrition for development, I want to focus most of my remarks on the appalling reality of hunger and acute malnutrition, which represent some of the most brutal consequences of the ongoing conflict. Famine conditions are no longer a distant warning; they are an already present reality. Acute malnutrition among children under five and breastfeeding mothers is projected to surge from 3.7 million last year to nearly 4.2 million in 2026. Furthermore, Save the Children estimates that cases of severe acute malnutrition will rise by a further 4% to a devastating 800,000.

We saw the horrific realities of the crisis just two weeks ago with the totally unacceptable attack on a World Food Programme convoy in Kordofan. Civilian personnel were injured and lifesaving aid was destroyed. Aid has become a weapon in this conflict, so I urge the Minister to continue to exert every possible diplomatic lever to ensure that El Obeid does not suffer the same fate as El Fasher, where starvation was used as a weapon of war, with local food supply chains systematically targeted in preparation for the siege and eventual massacre.

I recognise that the Minister and her colleagues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office must navigate delicate regional dynamics, but the Government must not shy away from forcefully challenging the covert actions of some of our Gulf allies in Sudan, both publicly and in private diplomacy. That would be totally consistent with the statement earlier in the House of Commons about elsewhere in the middle east.

Crucially, as I understand it, the UN arms embargo is due to expire, so the UK must act. The United States has rightly called for its expansion and extension. As UN Security Council penholder, the UK has a distinct moral and diplomatic duty to lead these negotiations at the upcoming UN General Assembly and press relentlessly for a humanitarian truce, a permanent ceasefire, robust civilian protection, civic engagement and unhindered aid access.

This war has created the largest forced displacement crisis on the planet. Egypt alone is currently hosting some 1.5 million refugees fleeing from the violence. Compounding that, severe El Niño weather events now threaten fragile food supply chains across east Africa, with UNICEF warning of intensifying drought, extreme heat and flooding that will further afflict vulnerable children. Our humanitarian response must be prioritised to mitigate that environmental pressure and include renewed efforts to secure a stable, civilian-led peace in accordance with the Berlin principles.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the need for a humanitarian response. Does he agree that that can have an impact only if it is internationally co-ordinated? The scale of the catastrophe in Sudan is such that anything less that will be a piecemeal gesture.

I absolutely agree. I—and the Minister, I am sure—would like the Quad that was established to be more effective in relation to the involvement of the United States and neighbouring countries, with those neighbouring countries playing a positive role rather than supporting the protagonists in the conflict. As the right hon. Member for Oxford East has previously said, the greater involvement of the African Union would be most welcome, but that has not really developed.

We are deluding ourselves if we believe that the consequences of the conflict can be contained in Sudan and neighbouring countries. Displacement will not stop at Egypt, particularly given that the camps are under pressure. Failing to properly support host countries and to address the conflict will ensure that the pressures are delivered closer to home, so it is totally in our interests to resolve the conflict. We must do everything we can to achieve that.

Thank you, Dr Allin-Khan. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for securing this debate, and to all hon. Members here for doing exactly what my hon. Friend said was needed: shine a light on the human catastrophe affecting Sudan and its people, in the midst of a war on civilians, human rights, children and women.

We have already heard some really disturbing statistics. Look at the number of people—8.6 million; I added it up this morning—who have been displaced throughout Sudan. It is the same as the populations of Scotland, Manchester and Bristol put together. Those people have been forced from their homes because of appalling violence and have to attempt to scrape a life together elsewhere. Of course, up to 4 million people who have had to flee Sudan are based in other countries. It is good to hear that colleagues met some of those refugees in Egypt; I met some of them in Chad. Their horrific stories will never leave me.

I want to focus my remarks on some concerning recent developments as it is important to put them on the record. I will then ask some questions of the new Minister, whom I welcome to her place; I am pleased to see her. First, as has been said, it is concerning to see that the conflict is certainly not abating. El Obeid is being encircled, as previous speakers have eloquently pointed out. There is renewed fighting in Blue Nile province and acute insecurity in the Nuba mountains. In many parts of Sudan, there is also cholera and dengue. In many ways, the humanitarian situation is getting worse.

Secondly, since we last discussed the issue in the House, there has been an even greater use of drones in Sudan, including double-tap attacks in which, following one attack, those trying to rescue the injured are killed too. That is being done by not just one belligerent but all of them. One example took place on 20 March, when there was a big drone attack on El-Daein teaching hospital in east Darfur, a Rapid Support Forces-controlled area. On the same day in Al Dabbah in Northern state, there was an attack in an area controlled by the Sudanese armed forces, which affected electricity infrastructure. Both attacks killed civilians and affected critical infrastructure.

Thirdly, it is concerning that restrictions on aid are becoming normalised in Sudan. We have already had a bit of a discussion about the involvement of the international community. It is important to underline that what both the SAF and the RSF are doing—forcing non-governmental organisations to register with them and saying, effectively, that they are not allowed to provide lifesaving support to the other side—is obviously using aid as a weapon of war. That is appalling, and it effectively requires NGOs to choose which group of starving people they want to serve.

Finally, there has been really poor rainfall so far this year, and it looks like that will make the food insecurity situation even worse. As has been mentioned, the crisis can feel far away, but it does not feel like that when we speak to people in our constituencies with families suffering in Sudan. Furthermore, we are seeing the consequences on our shores, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham.

Let me put the issue into perspective. The Sudanese now make up the largest category of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children trying to come into our country. They are also the second most numerous nationality, after Eritreans, in small boat arrivals. An enormous population movement is clearly happening because of the war on civilians in Sudan.

I have several questions for the Minister. First, recent attempts by the US to achieve an arms embargo on all of Sudan—not just the one already in place in Darfur—have been blocked by Russia, which claims that the conflict is completely one-sided. Will the Minister let us know what the UK is doing to support the US in that important call, and particularly in highlighting the appallingly destructive impact of cheap and readily available drones on civilians? Secondly, I welcome the UK’s sanctions on those exploiting gold and using it to support the belligerents in Sudan, but what more can be done? Does the Minister have a date yet for the illicit finance summit that is meant to happen later this year? Will it cover Sudanese gold? It would be useful to hear about that. Thirdly, will the UK push for a credible investigation of the allegations of chemical weapons use that we have heard in relation to Sudan? Finally, has the issue of the involvement of neighbouring countries been raised by the Foreign Secretary with the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries engaged in the conflict?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for setting the scene incredibly well. She was right to recognise the importance of the debate. Its importance is equal—I say this with great respect—to that of the Foreign Secretary’s statement, which is currently being debated in the main Chamber. The impact of the conflict in Sudan is even greater, given the number of people affected. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak specifically about the conflict’s devastating impact on freedom of religion and belief.

I always try to start with a verse of scripture, because for me that underlines the moral weight of what we are discussing. Proverbs 31:8 instructs us:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

In this Chamber, we are a voice for the voiceless. That is precisely what this debate asks us to do: to be the spokespeople in this Chamber for the Sudanese people.

Let us be clear from the outset: the situation in Sudan is not simply a conventional campaign of religious persecution. Since fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces erupted in April 2023, state authority has fragmented catastrophically. Armed groups operate with widespread immunity. Religious minorities have become acutely and disproportionately vulnerable in the chaos that has followed. It would be misleading, of course, to characterise the situation solely as one side persecuting Christians because both armed factions have attacked places of worship and terrorised communities of faith. The stats illustrate the scale of that. The Open Doors 2026 world watch list ranked Sudan fourth in the world for Christian persecution, with a score of 92 out of 100—the highest ever recorded for Sudan. That tells you what is happening in Sudan.

I am going to speak about the persecution. Approximately 2.2 million Christians, around 4.3% of the population, remain in Sudan. Some 23 Christians have been killed for faith-related reasons and around 100 churches or Christian buildings have been attacked or closed. In December 2024, RSF soldiers attacked a Church of Christ congregation during a Christmas prayer service in Al-Hasaheisa, forcing out some 177 worshippers, assaulting at least 14 people and looting the building. That is not collateral damage; it is targeted religious terror—that is how it must be categorised.

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, I must reiterate that freedom of religion or belief must mean freedom for all. Muslims, too, are victims. In September 2025, an RSF attack on a mosque in El Fasher during dawn prayers killed more than 80 worshippers. Mosques have been damaged and destroyed alongside churches. Baha’is, Shi’a Muslims and other small communities are equally exposed when institutional protection collapses entirely. That is what has happened in Sudan: protection is not there for anybody at this moment in time.

What makes its deterioration particularly grievous is that at one time Sudan was moving in a better direction. Following Omar al-Bashir’s removal in 2019, Sudan abolished the death penalty for apostasy and began to remove sharia law as a constitutional basis for legislation. Those were genuinely encouraging developments; in 2019 things did seem brighter, if only for a short time. The October 2021 coup halted that progress and the 2023 civil war has now swept away most of what remained of institutional religious protection—it has all gone away in some seven years.

We must encourage the Secretary of State to address three specific points. First, what representations is His Majesty’s Government making to ensure that FORB protections are explicitly incorporated into any future constitutional settlement in Sudan, preserving and building on the reforms of 2019 to 2020?

Secondly, what steps are being taken to document the attacks on religious infrastructure by both armed factions and raise them with international partners? I congratulate the Minister on her performance in the Chamber today; it was certainly strong, and I look forward to a similar response to the questions that we put forward here. I would like there to be accountability for those who have carried out terrible atrocities in Sudan. Is a process taking place to ensure that those who carried out heinous crimes—the hon. Lady for Gillingham and Rainham referred to a nine-year-old child being abused and raped by these monsters—have accountability?

Thirdly, will the Government commit to ensuring that humanitarian assistance reaches displaced religious minority communities who face discrimination even in accessing aid? There is no fairness in how aid is processed.

In conclusion, any influence that we have can and must be used to help the people for whom persecution has become a fact of life. That is a fact that we can never accept.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for securing this important debate, and I welcome the Minister to her place.

Sudan is now in its fourth year of conflict—four years of violence, displacement and starvation. Up to 400,000 people have been killed in a war that has displaced more than 14 million people and left 34 million—two thirds of the population—in need of humanitarian support. Behind those numbers are people’s lives, stories and unimaginable trauma and grief—a family forced to flee their generational home, a child suffering from malnutrition, a woman, girl or baby who has survived sexual violence or who has died because of sexual violence.

Those are some of the stories that my Barking constituents have shared with me. I have spoken to constituents with family links to Sudan, who fear for their loved ones. Others are horrified by the events and the international complacency. Sudan needs an immediate ceasefire and aid. That is why I support the Government’s efforts to keep the Sudan conflict high on the international agenda. I commend the former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), for all her efforts, and in particular for chairing a special session at the UN Security Council in February that focused entirely on Sudan. She placed the importance of women’s rights at the top of the agenda. In Sudan, it is women and children who have been disproportionately impacted.

My hon. Friend makes an important point and underlines the vulnerability that women and girls face across the world. Indeed, a staggering one in four Sudanese people are at risk of sexual violence, and women and girls are disproportionately impacted. In the UN report into the siege of El Fasher, one woman described being raped

“in front of the bodies of my mother, my father and my slaughtered brother.”

I cannot imagine the fear that Sudanese women feel every day. Will the Minister confirm that the £20 million programme to support victims of rape will continue?

In an unstable world where there is humanitarian suffering beyond comprehension, we too often feel forced to consider which crisis we care about the most. The truth is that humanity and compassion have no boundaries; they are not diluted by proximity, ethnicity or religion. There is no hierarchy of humanitarian suffering that we should be outraged about. Indeed, my constituents frequently express to me their deep frustration that the media and Government do not shine a brighter light on what is going on in Sudan.

More than just talking about the appalling situation in Sudan, we need the UK Government to take action. Will the Minister confirm that the UK will continue its arms embargo and sanctions regime until there is a ceasefire in Sudan? In July, sanctions were introduced against a further 11 individuals and organisations. The individuals and organisations on that list reveal a glimmer of the web of dark money and corporate interests that are exploiting this conflict for their own greed. Commercial brokers, real estate management companies, capital holding corporations, mining companies—the list goes on. All those organisations and individuals have blood on their hands.

Sanctioning individuals is not enough while the arms keep flowing. The UN independent international fact-finding mission for Sudan found reasonable grounds to believe that there is a transnational network running through companies and intermediaries in the UAE. Will the Minister say what the UK is doing, and what more it can do bilaterally and through the UN Security Council, specifically to press the UAE regarding these credible and mounting allegations? In the light of the allegations, will the Government review UK arms licensing arrangements with the UAE? I appreciate that she cannot go into detail about any further sanctions that the Government might be considering, but can she reassure us that that work is under way?

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham again for securing this important debate, and I thank all Members who have participated for their powerful speeches. Finally, I ask the Government to take more action to stop the genocide in Sudan, to support a ceasefire and to help the Sudanese people to find their future.

It is a pleasure, Dr Allin-Khan, to serve with you in the Chair for this vital debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) on securing it.

It is a sad fact of life in Parliament that we have not debated this issue enough, including on the Floor of the House of Commons, because the death toll in Sudan dwarfs anything else that is going on around the world at the moment, despite the amount of time that we spend discussing issues other than this one. I absolutely agree with the figures that the hon. Lady cited about the terrible death toll in Sudan, which is something in the order of 400,000, yet I suspect that even that is an underestimate. If it is, perhaps between 1 million and 1.5 million people in Sudan have been killed or wounded just in the direct conflict. Then, of course, there are all the people who have been displaced; she also gave those figures and I absolutely agree with them, too.

Today, I will focus on following the money, because it seems to me that if we were to stop the money, we would stop the war. In particular, I will focus on the role of the UAE in all of this, which I think is an abomination. Frankly, the UAE’s Administration is a disgraceful one anyway, and I will go on to say why.

It is now absolutely clear, from the work of the prominent human rights organisations and many media outlets that have conducted investigations into RSF fighters, that those fighters are using weapons supplied by the UAE. If not manufactured in the UAE, the weapons are certainly re-exported to them on a regular basis and in vast numbers, along with ammunition.

Furthermore, Colombian mercenaries have arrived in Sudan, who were no doubt recruited from an organisation that is very close to the leadership of the UAE. In September 2025, the Government of Sudan estimated that the number of Colombian mercenaries in Sudan was getting on for 500, but other estimates suggest that the real number is between 1,500 and 2,000, and growing.

We believe that that is the direct result of what has been happening in the UAE. The Global Security Services Group is the organisation contracted to hire those people, and it is also involved in the supply of weapons. The GSSG is owned by an Emirati businessman, Mohamed Hamdan Alzaabi, who has business interests in security firms jointly with Ahmed Mohamed Al Hameeri, the secretary-general of the UAE’s Presidential Court. The links to what is going on in Sudan have been very clearly established. GSSG continues to be closely tied to the Government of the UAE. Its website states that it is the preferred security provider for the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Presidential Affairs, and there is evidence that two military bases in Abu Dhabi were used as training facilities for mercenaries—the list goes on.

My question to the UK Government is this: why in heaven’s name are we not sanctioning key operatives in the UAE now? I am the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions and reparation, and I say that it is high time that we imposed sanctions on those key UAE operatives.

We can also look at the links back to Sheikh Mansour, who has well-documented ties with the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and has even been described as Hamdan Dagalo’s closest ally in the UAE. In March 2023, Premier League clubs, apparently unanimously, that they would not allow individuals involved in human rights abuses to own clubs, yet Mansour is still in charge of Manchester City. The question is, why, and why are the Government so determined not to pursue these individuals? I suspect that the reason involves a lot of money in investments and the ownership of football teams, but that should not stop the Government from pursuing these people, because the UAE would be very suspect in that.

Even if that were not enough, the UAE is involved in the most appalling abuse. British citizen Ryan Cornelius has spent 18 years incarcerated, even though the UN has claimed that that is completely wrong and unjudicial and that he should be released. The Abu Dhabi bank has continued to pursue him, and he has not seen his family for close on 19 years now. He is a British citizen, but how often have representatives of successive Governments, when they have visited the UAE, named him or said anything about him? The answer is “Very rarely.” All they do is tokenistically raise the issue and move on, as they pursue more money.

We know that Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaibani, who is the chair of the Dubai Islamic bank and head of the Dubai Ruler’s Court, is responsible for Ryan’s detention for 18 years and is very close to the leadership of UAE. It is time that we cracked down on this organisation and showed it to be the pariah that it is. It is behind all that is going on in Sudan and the abuses of British citizens who should be released. Unless the Government are prepared to step up, sanction key individuals, and prevent them from owning football teams, investing in the United Kingdom and enjoying their shopping trips here, we will not be the nation that we should be.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) on securing such an important debate.

As we think about the displacement and destitution, the hunger, the rape and the violence in everyday stories of this forgotten war in Sudan, which is destroying a nation, ripping it apart and fuelling the greatest humanitarian disaster on our planet, we know we have to step up our focus and our action in this place. Although I welcome all the contributions of hon. Members to this debate, the amount of attention that the House gives to this disaster is still insufficient.

When we think about the fact that 33.7 million of the Sudanese population are in need of humanitarian assistance, 13 million have been displaced, 19.5 million are at levels of food insecurity and need urgent attention, and there are 8 million children who are not in the safety of school every day, getting their education, which will fuel challenges for the future too, it is so urgent that we find a path to move beyond these atrocities. Yet it feels like actors cannot see beyond the desire to gain ground, destroy lives and property, and kill any hope.

The Sudan war is a proxy for external actors, and that is what demands our urgent attention. We must use all the leverage we have to stop fuelling the conflict, not least by addressing the behaviours of countries such as the UAE and, at times, Egypt too. The conflict is moving beyond traditional warfare; we are now seeing extensive drone use, mercenaries being brought from Colombia, and the exchange of money too. We also know that Russia has its own interests in weapons and gold.

We must look at the minimal interest in Sudan and the developments in Port Sudan at this time. In fighting this proxy war, we need to ensure there is proper global accountability, which seems so lacking from our systems. In our tinderbox of geopolitical fragility, where domestic politics sucks our attention, we need to find the capacity in Government to provide the leadership that is necessary and the resolutions that are so urgent. We must match those with commitments to provide aid at scale and to use the political capital that we can bring.

In recent years, we have witnessed new approaches. In the assault on El Fasher in particular, we saw the systematic raping of women, the burning of people and places, and the escalation in the next chapter of the civil war that has raged since April 2023.

Last year in London, and this year in Berlin, the UK and other actors brought people together to break the deadlock, yet the fruit of those efforts has been so small. We need to look more widely at our infrastructure for addressing conflict. I welcome steps taken by the former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), to address the issue of women in conflict, and particularly the investment for those who have experienced sexual harm as a result of the conflict. Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made in that area, how that money has been spent and its impact to date?

As we see increasing brutalisation in war, we have to focus even more on how we use international law to hold actors to account, and on the pace of that process, because it takes forever and a day to bring people to account. We also need a different vision for how we build diplomacy, whether that is a focus on the post-conflict opportunity of trade, on reciprocity in co-operation, on security and stability, or on where we can use pragmatism and protection to build rules and rights. We must take the seeds of London and the shoots of Berlin so that they grow into a settlement that works for people on the ground in Sudan.

Will the Minister also look at the role of civil society? Up to 2023, civil society played a major role in maintaining stability in Sudan. Being able to work with local leaders is crucial to increasing their opportunity to build the bridges that are necessary to de-escalate the risks we see. How are we not only investing but inspiring community organisations and actors to use their accountability and creative diplomacy, and how are we providing the necessary support that they need to build for the future?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for securing the debate.

Sudan now faces the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, largest hunger crisis and biggest internal displacement crisis. History has taught us that war always drains resources into armed conflict, instead of directing them towards manufacturing, development and raising people’s living standards. The war is a counter-revolutionary conflict between two military factions that has left Sudan’s infrastructure largely destroyed. Sudan’s agriculture, industry and domestic and foreign trade have all been severely disrupted, with approximately 13 million people displaced, 19.5 million people facing acute food insecurity and hundreds of thousands of people living in famine conditions.

As well as the war, there have been years of failed politics, a lack of development, a weakening of production and widespread corruption. This has all led to the collapse of state institutions, mass unemployment and intense poverty. According to the latest estimates from Sudan’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 82.8% of the population now live below the poverty line. The war has created an economy in which military interests, commercial networks and smuggling converge, for which both sides bear responsibility. Both sides are using gold, once a national resource, for financing. The revenues are used to purchase weapons, ammunition, drones and other military supplies. Sudan’s gold production reached 70.15 tonnes in 2025, while officially recorded exports amounted only to approximately 14 tonnes, so 56 tonnes of gold did not enter official channels through the Bank of Sudan.

The war is being used to pass highly questionable agreements on projects with international capital, and with countries that have appalling human rights records. That has far-reaching economic investment and strategic consequences. For example, the Sudanese-Saudi co-ordination council operates away from the gaze of public scrutiny and grants long-term economic investment and strategic concessions involving land, agriculture, ports and other natural resources. Only last year, the Sudanese Foreign Minister confirmed that a final understanding had been reached that would see a Russian naval base on the Red sea, with up to 300 Russian personnel and four warships.

Collectively, the international community must try to bring this war to an end, guarantee humanitarian access, press all parties for safe, unhindered aid delivery to every part of Sudan through all available channels, and back efforts to prevent famine. The arms pipeline should be cut off, with the UK actively monitoring and using every available measure to end foreign military support to the warring factions, including the UAE’s support to the RSF, and UN Security Council resolution 1556 should be enforced.

There must be accountability, not impunity. The UK should support independent monitoring, documentation and prosecution in respect of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law by all perpetrators. There should be a democratic, Sudanese-led civilian transition, with the UK backing a genuinely inclusive process that excludes the warring parties and the former regime, with no return to power sharing with the military, and the introduction of a single national army under civilian oversight.

The decisive factor here is internal. The resistance committees, the trade unions and the displaced people’s committees should help to shape Sudan’s future, with the UK and wider international community supporting democratic forces on the ground and backing bottom-up participation and leadership that leads to sovereignty and the reconstruction of a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Sudan.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for raising the subject, which we should be talking about much more, and welcome the Minister to her place. I declare my interest as vice-chair of the APPG for Sudan and South Sudan, and I refer to a trip undertaken with Action Against Hunger to the Chad-Sudan border to witness the impact of the conflict.

I can rehearse the lines I have said over and over again during my time in the House to a range of Ministers: the world has failed Sudan, and the UK must do much more to bring about an end to the conflict and to the largest humanitarian crisis in the world today. In June, with the leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), I wrote to the former Prime Minister urging him to use his last hours in office to act to end the escalating crisis in El Obeid, which is at real risk of levels of violence against civilians similar to the El Fasher massacre in 2025. I did not receive a response.

Over the summer, El Obeid has seen thousands of people arriving in search of shelter. Foreign Ministers, including here in the UK, have made welcome statements calling for de-escalation and for the warring parties to uphold international humanitarian law, but the situation there continues to worsen. It is emblematic of the situation in Sudan today.

In May, colleagues and I visited Chad’s border with Sudan. We found a humanitarian response operating under extraordinary pressure. The town of Adré, which once had a population of 40,000, now hosts an estimated 240,000 people. Chad now hosts more than 1.5 million refugees, the majority of them from Sudan. Chad is one of the poorest countries in the world and is sharing scarce water, land and services with a vast refugee population. But as the humanitarian actors we met on our trip told us continually, the needs far outweigh the resources they have to respond.

Like the hon. Lady, I went on that trip—I declare an interest exactly as she expressed it. She talks about the hard work of humanitarian organisations; does she agree that those who received support were very grateful for it, as they kept saying to us, but were really concerned about what would happen in the future, and had already seen a reduction in that support?

The right hon. Member is absolutely right. The overall funding to Chad for the humanitarian response had fallen to 27%. That meant that in the refugee camps we visited, food was being rationed—it may have been every other week or every other month that they were missing food parcels—and the refugees were extremely worried about what would happen.

We Liberal Democrats welcomed the Government’s announcement of £146 million of new funds for frontline aid workers to support Sudan, but the Government’s aid cuts have diminished our ability to respond to humanitarian crises and honour our international commitments. I remind the Minister that the 0.7% aid budget was a commitment that the House legislated for, and that we continue to wait for a timetable to return to 0.7%.

Meanwhile, the atrocities continue. I recently met representatives of the independent UN fact-finding mission for Sudan. Their latest report was just released and makes for tough reading, concluding that external support is sustaining and expanding the military capabilities of the SAF and RSF, particularly their drone capability; that transnational networks are supplying the RSF with

“weapons, logistics, training and foreign personnel”;

and that the SAF is using foreign-supplied drones that harm civilians.

I thank the hon. Lady for her speech. The hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) referred to the influence of Russia. The Wagner Group in particular seems to be in the background, training and exploiting the reserves, gold and minerals in Sudan at the same time as being involved in atrocities against women, children and all the people in Sudan. Does the hon. Lady agree that when it comes to looking for culprits, Russia is at the top of the list?

Absolutely. China, Russia and so many other countries are involved in the crisis.

I welcome yesterday’s statement by the UK on behalf of the coalition for atrocity prevention and justice in Sudan, which called for a stop to the continued illegal flow of weapons, but when will the UK call out the countries doing it? I have pressed and pressed successive Ministers and Foreign Secretaries, and they continually refuse to call out the UAE in particular for its widely reported bloody role in the conflict. When will they do so, and when will they take consequential action for their hand in it? Will arms licences to the named countries be reviewed and halted in the light of the reports?

With the current arms embargo on the Darfur region up for renewal at the end of this week, will the UK push for a Sudan-wide arms embargo, something that even the USA is now calling for? Will the Government use the UK’s role as UN Security Council penholder on Sudan to advance efforts to secure a ceasefire? The current road map is unrealistic; how will the Government propose a realistic de-escalation? What about the sanctions on those at the heart of the conflict? Will the Government widen the scope of their sanctions regime to ensure that those driving the conflict face further restrictions?

In Chad, I met women so traumatised by what they had experienced that their eyes were dead. Some could not speak. Those who did told us harrowing tales of rape and murder on their way across Sudan to Chad. One lady had witnessed nine male members of her family being murdered. One lady had just arrived at the border into the care of the UN with two children, aged five and seven. She had taken five months to get there, by herself, from El Fasher. Those roads are dangerous. How will the Government work to secure the safety of civilians?

What about accountability? In the absence of reprisals, belligerents and their state backers are acting with impunity. Belligerents are using rape, starvation as a weapon of war, arbitrary detention, torture and retaliation against civilian populations. International NGOs are being silenced with the threat of their access being removed if they speak out, and the UNHCR does not even have the money to spend time with victims of unbelievable violence and diagnose what has occurred. We cannot seek accountability if we cannot fund the capacity to establish it, so will the Government review their financial commitment to Sudan and encourage other nations also to fill the void?

Will the Government commit to seeking to extend the mandate of the fact-finding mission? What conversations are being had about a peacekeeping force in Sudan, perhaps with the African Union, if only to state that the world is waking up to this conflict and that the belligerents are no longer able to act with impunity, thumbing their nose at international humanitarian law and the values of humanity itself?

The UK has a unique role to play in this conflict. I have just hotfooted it from the Foreign Secretary’s statement on Palestine, which I welcome. I applaud his assertion that

“It is also the case that if we fail to stand up for the values that this country has long held and fought for, we lose credibility and influence in the world.”

He talked about

“a Britain that upholds its values at home and around the world, a Britain that fights against oppression and suffering wherever they occur, and a Britain that stands up for what is right.”

Does that apply to Sudan too?

Will the Government use every lever at their disposal to up the urgency and convince the international community to act to stop the bloodshed? For every child trapped in this terrible conflict, terrified right now, for every mother trying to protect her son, for every civilian caught up in the violence, for the humanitarian worker facing unbelievable risks, and for humanity’s sake, do more.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) on securing this important debate.

I am grateful to Members from across the House for their contributions—not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who stressed the importance of keeping this topic on the agenda and under discussion in this place, and of sanctions. As ever, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) brought huge knowledge and expertise to the debate, particularly about nutrition, and no debate is complete without the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I also welcome the new Minister to her place; I think this is the first time that we have met as Front Benchers in Westminster Hall.

The conflict in Sudan may not always receive the same attention in this country as other international crises, but the scale of human suffering is truly appalling. For more than three years, fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces has devastated communities across the country. At least 150,000 people are estimated to have been killed, about 14 million people have been displaced, including 9 million within Sudan itself, and more than half the population is now acutely food insecure. Famine has been confirmed in multiple areas.

Behind each of those statistics are individuals and families whose lives have been torn apart. We have seen horrifying reports of attacks against civilians, widespread sexual violence, the destruction of essential infrastructure and the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian assistance. Those responsible for atrocities must ultimately be held to account.

I want to use this opportunity to recognise the extraordinary work of humanitarian and Sudanese civil society organisations, which often operate in extremely dangerous circumstances to deliver assistance to those who desperately need it. The recent attack on a World Food Programme humanitarian convoy was another disturbing reminder of the risks faced by those who are simply trying to deliver lifesaving assistance. There is no justification for attacks on humanitarian workers or the deliberate obstruction of aid. The Government were therefore right to condemn the attack, but condemnation must be accompanied by consequences. Will the Minister tell us what assessment the Government have made of responsibility for the attacks on humanitarian operations? What action are they prepared to take against those responsible?

The regional consequences of this conflict also demand our attention. As we have heard, 4.5 million Sudanese people have fled to neighbouring countries. Chad and Egypt are carrying a particularly significant burden. Egypt alone hosts about 1.5 million Sudanese refugees. Without adequate protection, basic services and opportunities in neighbouring countries, vulnerable people face exploitation and are increasingly driven towards dangerous onward journeys.

The number of Sudanese refugees arriving in Europe rose sharply between 2024 and 2025, and Sudanese nationals accounted for 11% of small boat arrivals to the UK last year. This is therefore not just a humanitarian crisis. Continued instability in Sudan has serious consequences for regional stability and, ultimately, for our national security. We cannot afford to see a vast, ungoverned space emerge between the Sahel and the Red sea, in which hostile states, terrorist organisations and criminal networks are able to expand their influence.

There are already deeply concerning reports of external actors fuelling this war through weapons, financing and political support. Russia has sought influence with both sides while pursuing its own strategic interests, including access to Port Sudan and the Red sea. There are also long-standing and serious allegations about the supply of weapons to the RSF through regional networks. The Government must therefore be clear that those who finance, arm and prolong this conflict cannot expect to do so without consequences. We welcome the sanctions announced in July against individuals and entities linked to illicit gold networks and the financing and procurement structures supporting both the RSF and the SAF. Ministers, however, need to demonstrate that those measures are disrupting the networks sustaining the war rather than just identifying them.

The previous Conservative Government began sanctions against SAF and RSF-linked individuals and entities. We secured UN Security Council resolution 2736 demanding that the RSF halt its siege of El Fasher, and created the position of special envoy for the Red sea and horn of Africa. We repeatedly raised concerns about the role of illicit Sudanese gold and reports of external arms supplies.

I have a few questions for the Minister. What further sanctions are now being considered against those funding or arming the warring parties? What steps are being taken with international partners to disrupt the illicit gold networks that continue to finance the conflict? What conversations are Ministers having with regional partners about allegations that weapons continue to reach the parties through neighbouring states?

Ultimately, sanctions and humanitarian assistance can address some of the consequences of the war, but they cannot substitute for the political settlement that Sudan so desperately needs. There is no military solution to the conflict. The UK has an important responsibility as the UN Security Council penholder on Sudan. We need to use that position assertively. We welcome the Berlin principles agreed earlier this year, including the commitment to an immediate humanitarian truce, a sustained ceasefire and, ultimately, a civilian-led political transition.

Principles on paper must now translate into progress on the ground. The Government have spoken about their efforts with international partners to broker a humanitarian truce; I hope that the Minister will update the House on precisely where those discussions now stand. What are the principal obstacles to securing that truce? What diplomatic engagement is taking place with external actors who possess influence over the parties? What is the Government’s assessment of the prospects for moving from a humanitarian truce to a permanent ceasefire and a credible, civilian-led political process? The voices of Sudanese civilians themselves must be central to that process, including the women, who have suffered so disproportionately during the conflict. The Berlin principles rightly recognise the importance of their meaningful participation.

Accountability must also remain at the heart of our approach. The evidence of atrocities committed during the conflict, including widespread sexual violence, is horrifying. The Government should set out what practical assistance Britain is providing for the collection and preservation of evidence, and how we are supporting the international mechanisms necessary to turn that evidence into prosecutions. I hope that the Minister will address specifically what support is being provided, including through Sudanese-led organisations operating on the ground, to women and girls who have survived sexual violence.

Britain has a long history of engagement in Sudan, and we retain diplomatic influence that should be used. The Government will have the support of the Opposition where they take effective action towards those objectives. However, after more than three years of war, Sudan needs more than statements of concern. It needs sustained diplomatic leadership, consequences for those prolonging the conflict, accountability for those responsible for atrocities and a credible pathway towards peace. I look forward to listening to the Minister demonstrate just how the UK intends to deliver exactly that.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for securing this important debate, and for her recent visit to Egypt, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee). As they will have both heard, the conflict in Sudan is one of the most devastating and—I would argue—defining conflicts of the 21st century.

For the millions of people living through it, the word “crisis” just does not do it justice. That is why I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham and others in the Chamber today for continuing to shine a light on this conflict, and I ask them to please pass on my sincere gratitude to all their constituents who have been in touch on this issue. It is incredibly inspiring to see their solidarity with people who they may never meet. I also want to pay tribute to my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and Baroness Chapman of Darlington, and the former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), for their tireless efforts to strengthen the world’s response.

My message today is simple: the UK stands with the people of Sudan, and this Government, the Foreign Secretary and I stand with them too. We have heard powerfully from all the speakers today about the current situation, not least from the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton). I will not rehearse all the statistics, but I would like to add two of my own: Sudan is now the deadliest place on earth to be a health worker, and it is the second deadliest place on earth to be an aid worker. There can be no justification, in any circumstance, for attacks on those who simply seek to serve humanity. When faced with suffering on this scale, our compassion is not enough, and our outrage is not enough. I know that Members want to hear about our action, so let me go through the points that have been raised in turn.

This year, the UK has committed £146 million in support for Sudan, which will reach over 1.8 million people. Having been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), I am pleased to confirm that, as part of that work, we have launched a £20 million programme to support survivors of sexual and gender-based violence with medical and psychological care. To ensure that those closest to the crisis can deliver aid to the hardest-to-reach areas, we have more than doubled our support to local Sudanese responders, including to local emergency response rooms. I am proud of what we are doing on aid, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham pointed out, aid alone is not enough, which is why she sought reassurance on arms sales.

I very much welcome the Minister’s response; I never doubted for a second that it would be positive. My contribution was specifically about Christians, who do not seem to be seeing any of that aid coming through. What can be done to ensure the equal dispersal of aid to all ethnic groups, particularly the Christians who just do not seem to be getting it?

I apologise for not addressing that in my remarks. Equality of access to aid is obviously incredibly important. I would be delighted to write to the hon. Member after the debate on particular questions about freedom of religion or belief and equitable distribution to all communities in Sudan.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham asked for reassurance about our position on arms sales, and I want to confirm that the UK has one of the most robust and transparent export control regimes in the world. Every single licence is assessed for risk of diversion and kept under careful and continual review. We have so far reviewed over 3,000 export licences for destinations where there have been allegations of diversion or transit to Sudan, and we have thus far found no evidence of UK weapons or ammunition being used in Sudan. We will keep that under continual review.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East also asked whether the UK supports expanding the arms embargo to the whole of Sudan. I am pleased to confirm that, as she will know, negotiations on the renewal of the UN embargo are currently under way, but the UK is full-throatedly supporting efforts to extend its scope. Last year, we worked closely with the United States and other UN SC members to secure its renewal, and the UK has a long-standing bilateral arms embargo in place for the whole of Sudan, sitting alongside a separate UN arms embargo on Darfur.

Several hon. Members asked about the diplomatic priority of the conflict in Sudan in the new Foreign Office team. I want to be absolutely clear that it is central to everything that the Foreign Secretary and I are trying to achieve. We are committed to doing all we can to secure a ceasefire. In April, the UK hosted the international Sudan conference in Berlin to marshal the efforts of the 55 states present to press for a ceasefire. As the UN Security Council penholder for Sudan, we have secured eight resolutions and 12 press statements, galvanising global action towards a ceasefire. We regularly speak to members of the Quad, and others with influence, to co-ordinate efforts towards the US-led push for a truce to protect civilians and ensure that critical humanitarian aid can reach those who are most in need. Our special representative to Sudan also regularly engages with the warring parties, advocating for a ceasefire and a civilian-led transition.

I have been asked today about the nature of the conversations that we have been having. I am pleased to confirm that I was recently in Addis Ababa and was able to raise the situation directly with the chairperson of the African Union. I can also confirm that FCDO Ministers including the Foreign Secretary have raised the situation in Sudan with Emirati counterparts and other members of the Quad.

The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), spoke powerfully today, particularly about the need for atrocity prevention in El Obeid. I want to reflect for a moment on what we are doing there. The UK has lobbied at every level, including with the warring parties and those with influence over them. As the UN Security Council penholder, we have been advocating to highlight the risk of atrocities and push for an immediate ceasefire. On 3 July, we convened an urgent debate at the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in El Obeid, calling for urgent de-escalation, humanitarian access and safe passage for civilians. On 6 July, a UK-penned resolution urging the warring parties to agree an immediate ceasefire and comply with international law was adopted by consensus. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson also asked whether we would be extending the fact-finding mission’s mandate; I can confirm that we are indeed pushing for that, as we led for the mandate in the past.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) asked about our engagement with the Sudanese civil society and diaspora. Officials engage frequently with members of the Sudanese diaspora and civil society, including through a quarterly diaspora engagement forum that co-ordinates engagement across the UK and, indeed, in the region.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East asked about the recent reports of chemical weapons use. As hon. Members might imagine, we are hugely concerned. All such allegations must be taken seriously and investigated, because any use of chemical weapons, by anyone anywhere, is utterly unacceptable. As Members will know, Sudan is a state party to the chemical weapons convention, and we expect all those in Sudan to abide by its obligations.

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) brought to our attention the issue of Colombian mercenaries. I want to confirm that we have already sanctioned Colombian mercenaries suspected of involvement in atrocities in Sudan, as well as those suspected of supplying weapons to the RSF. We have recently targeted actors suspected of using the gold trade to bankroll Sudan’s brutal war from beyond its borders.

I will say a little more about gold, because it was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds). In July, we announced a fresh package of sanctions against illicit gold networks. That followed four rounds of designations targeting senior SAF and RSF commanders and those suspected of being complicit in the heinous atrocities committed during the assault on El Fasher last year.

I have been asked to reflect on future sanctions. As Members will appreciate, we generally do not do that, because it limits their effectiveness, but I can assure them that their representations have been heard.

We have also focused on this situation through our work in August on the UK-convened coalition for atrocity prevention and justice in Sudan, with a two-day conference in London at which we discussed innovative civilian-protection measures and heard directly from the independent fact-finding mission ahead of its vital report, which we have just been discussing.

I am pleased to confirm that at the UN General Assembly later this month, the Foreign Secretary and I will continue to make the case that Sudan cannot, must not and will not be forgotten. As we all know so well, every single day that this conflict continues, the human cost grows, but so too does the need for dialogue, justice and peace.

Will the Minister commit—the previous Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper) certainly indicated this—to being proactive in bringing statements to the House of Commons in relation to the situation in Sudan? Many of the previous statements have had to come as a result of urgent questions. Proactivity from her Department would be welcomed across the House and would be helpful in shining a light on the issue.

I am delighted to confirm that I will be very proactive, yes. I am so moved by and appreciative of all Members who have come to speak today, their constituents and the work of the APPGs in which they are all involved. I happily confirm that, both to those Members with specialist knowledge and to those raising issues on behalf of constituents.

I thank the Minister for being generous in taking our questions. The most evil, wicked and bestial crimes have been carried out, including the murder or rape of women from ages eight to 80, the destruction of property and the infliction of injuries, with people’s arms and limbs being taken off. The House would be keen to understand whether there has been any attempt whatever to collate all those atrocities and the people involved in them, so that they can be held accountable.

Yes, the UK is supporting documentation attempts so that there can be accountability.

I am conscious of time, so I will draw to a close. We cannot and will not allow Sudan to slip down the agenda, globally or in this House, because Sudan matters: its people matter, their dignity matters and their future matters. The United Kingdom will continue to stand alongside them in their pursuit of peace, justice and a better future.

I thank all colleagues for their approach and for contributing so powerfully to this debate. They have drawn to our attention some matters of detail to address in the crisis that we face, from the impact of gender-based violence to the role played by other actors in the region. It has been an important discussion and I thank everyone for their contributions.

I welcome the Minister to her place. I thank her warmly for her response, and particularly for her commitments to addressing gender-based violence in the region and for her assurances around arms licences and the embargo. I also thank her for her commitment to proactively bringing the issue to the Floor of the House; it is incredibly important that we have space to do that. Notwithstanding the fact that colleagues in this room have done a lot of work on the issue, we need to keep up the political pressure and ensure that this humanitarian crisis is given the attention it needs.

Despite the clear assurances from the Minister, there is clear consensus in this Chamber that we still need to do more. Our place on the world stage means that it is incumbent on us as a nation to go further, not just for the stability of the region but for the people of Sudan, who are at the heart of this humanitarian crisis. They are looking to the international community to facilitate an end to the suffering. I hope that we can continue to work in a constructive manner, directly with the Minister and more widely, to bring an end to this situation.

I thank everyone for their contributions. I cannot help noticing that powerfully standing up for women in Sudan have been the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan), who secured the debate, and three Front-Bench women.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the conflict in Sudan.