MR MILLER: Good afternoon, everyone. We have a couple of guests today. Run of show: Our Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield is here along with our Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello. Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield is going to kick it off with some open remarks. They'll take a few questions about the conflict in Sudan, and then I will return for the remainder of the briefing. So, Ambassador.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you very much and good afternoon everyone. Let me just start by welcoming Special Envoy Tom Perriello back from Chad just last week but also welcome him back to the State Department. Last week, Tom traveled to Adré Refugee Camp right along the border of Sudan. It's a trip that I know quite well. I was at that same refugee camp just a few months ago in September. I also visited the camp 20 years ago.
Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees had fled for this camp in the months prior - 90 percent of them women and children. And among those refugees was a six-month-old baby, born only days before the fighting broke out in Sudan. When I saw her, she was suffering from acute malnutrition - so small, so fragile, I thought she was a newborn. There is so much about her story that I don't know: how she arrived at the MSF hospital, whether she ever left the hospital. But I think about her today as the world nears a grim milestone: one year of horrific civil war in Sudan; how she was born as her country spiraled into conflict; how she was carried into Chad, her protectors walking miles and miles to reach a semblance of safety; how she spent those formative few months in a hospital too small and weak to even cry as doctors tried desperately to nurse her back to health; and how now she reaches her first birthday having only known violence, hunger, and displacement.
April 11th should be a historic occasion as we mark the five-year anniversary of the revolution that toppled the Omar al-Bashir's regime, 30 - his 30-year reign. Five years ago, you could practically taste the spirit of freedom, peace, and democracy in the air as women and young people took to the streets demanding change. And yet that baby I met in September is not growing up in a free, peaceful, democratic Sudan. Instead, she's one of millions whose lives have been upended and forever altered by this war.
Today, nearly 25 million Sudanese people live in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection; three-quarters of them face acute food insecurity. Nearly 8 million have had to flee their homes in what has become the world's largest internal displacement crisis. We've seen reports of gang rape, mass murder at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces militia, of girls sold into sexual slavery, boys being made into child soldiers, of urban areas destroyed by arial weapons, and entire villages burned to the ground. And yet, as communities barrel toward famine, as cholera and measles spread, as violence continues to claim countless lives, the world has largely remained silent. And that must change and it has to change now. The international community must give more, it must do more, and it has to care more.
And let's start with the funding piece because that's critical. To date, just 5 percent - 5 percent - of the UN's humanitarian appeal for Sudan has been met. Already, the World Food Program has had to cut assistance to over 7 million people in Chad and South Sudan, and that includes 1.2 million refugees like the ones I met in Adré, people who were already struggling to feed themselves and their families.
This is a matter of life and death. Experts warn that the coming weeks and months, over 200,000 more children could die of starvation. The United States, for our part, plans on significantly increasing our funding in the days to come.
More than just lacking aid, however, humanitarian workers have been systematically obstructed from delivering aid to those in need. From the beginning, brave people have been on the ground, often putting their lives at risk, to save people in Sudan. But at every turn, combatants on both sides of the war have undermined their work. That includes the Sudanese Armed Forces, which has impeded the major humanitarian aid crossings from Chad into Darfur.
And that's where doing more comes in. Should the SAF not reverse course immediately, the Security Council must intervene to ensure lifesaving aid is delivered and distributed, including, if necessary, through a cross-border mechanism. What's more, we must continue urging the warring parties to stop the fighting and get back to the negotiating table, as well as urge those outside supporters prolonging this conflict and enabling these atrocities to stop sending weapons to Sudan.
Finally, I want to talk about the lack of care, the lack of attention, the world has paid to Sudan. Just five years after a revolution that offered a glimpse at a free, peaceful, democratic Sudan, people are losing hope. Aid workers have begun calling this conflict the forgotten war. Sudanese children are asking why the world has forgotten them. And let's be clear: I don't believe the dearth of attention is because people are ignorant or unfeeling. In fact, I believe it's the opposite. I believe it's because there are so many terrible crises, so much violence and pain, that people don't quite know which way to turn.
And this is where I need the help of all of you - the members of the press who join me in this briefing. As we mark one year of this conflict, please don't let it go uncovered. Don't let stories like the ones I heard in Chad go unheard. Don't let perpetrators of this horrific violence go unexposed, from the generals who started the war to the backers who continue to fuel it. Don't let the feeling that we have forgotten Sudan become a reality, because we need - we need to reignite that spirit of revolution, the hope and promise that characterized this day five years ago. I'm counting on you, and the people of Sudan are counting on you as well.
So thank you, and Special Envoy Perriello and I will now take a few questions.
MR MILLER: Matt, do you want to - do you have anything?
QUESTION: I don't really have anything.
MR MILLER: Shaun.
QUESTION: Sure, thanks. Thanks, Ambassador and Special Envoy. Could I ask you two things?
Tom, you've said before that you're hopeful with the end of Ramadan that the talks could resume. Do you think that that's on the cards now? Do you see an interest - a strategic decision by both sides - to resume talks?
And Ambassador, you mentioned a cross-border mechanism. I know you've spoken about that before. How close do you think we are to that becoming reality? Do you see that as realistically something that the Security Council with the vetoes there can push through?
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You want to come first?
MR PERRIELLO: First. We do sense a great deal of urgency to resume talks. And in fact, talks are already ongoing in the sense that we are negotiating every day and trying to align key actors inside and outside with a plan that would end this war. We appreciate that Saudi Arabia has committed to hosting a new round of talks and that those will be inclusive talks. We hope that that will be a date that we can be able to announce soon and build momentum coming out of the gatherings in Paris and start to have a sense of when that date will be. But in the meantime, we are not waiting to continue to try to put pressure on the parties to come to the table, and we do think that there are some signs - while many, many signs point to the war getting even worse, in some ways it's gotten so bad and it's starting to have such regional implications that it's also increased, I think, some of the diplomatic appetite to try to find an end to this war. And we're going to try to use every lever we have to build that into enough political momentum and political will to end this war.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Look, on the cross-border concept, we know that it is a concept that can work. It worked in Syria. We hope we don't have to go there. We hope we don't have to push for a resolution to go there. And for that reason, we're engaging very actively with the SAF as well as the RSF and other parties on the ground to see how we can work with all of them to facilitate getting needed humanitarian assistance into these areas that is so desperately needed.
But if we're not able to work with them, if we're not able to get their cooperation, then we have to find another way. We can't sit back and not look for other opportunities to see - to get humanitarian assistance to people who are in desperate need.
MR MILLER: Michele Kelemen in the back.
QUESTION: Hi, thanks for taking my question. You talked about other countries fueling the conflict. I wonder if you can name them. What are you telling them? Because I think some of them are U.S. partners.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yeah, we --
QUESTION: And what more can the U.S. do to put pressure on the political players in terms of sanctions?
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: With all of the countries who have been identified as possibly fueling this conflict, we have had direct conversations with every single one of them to press them to cease their support and fueling of this war. They've been named in the press. We've seen the Emiratis be named in the press. We've seen Egypt be named in the press. There are others who have been identified in the press as well. And with all of them we have constant engagements, and I know that Tom has had those engagements as well.
MR MILLER: (Off-mike.)
QUESTION: Thank you. Just to elaborate a little bit more on that, to what extent is the UAE - can you talk about them helping the RSF and refusing to listen to U.S. messages to stop its weapons shipments? Can you speak about that at all?
MR PERRIELLO: I think we've been making very clear to all partners across the region that escalating the war at this time is something that is going to not only have increasing humanitarian costs but actually risks destabilization of the entire region. We see a conflict that in some ways has been between two sides that shows signs of being increasingly factionalized in ways that brings in some of the tribal militias that have stayed neutral and affects the ability of some of the neighboring countries to - that have tried to stay - be constructive and not get more involved to get pulled in. And right now is a time that every arms shipment, every bit fueling this conflict, is something that pushes us closer to not only famine, but to a failed state. And the flip side is this is a situation in which everyone in the region can benefit from a peaceful and stable Sudan. The Sudanese people are extremely clear about what they want. They want a return to the constitutional transition begun with great courage just a few years ago. They want to see a unified professional military that is accountable to the people. They want to see not a return of extremists and former corrupt officials. And they want that full humanitarian access.
And I think they're going to be looking across the region at who stood with the Sudanese people at this time of great crisis, and who was pouring fuel on the fire. And those consequences for those that are making the situation worse need to increase, and I think we are seeing particularly around this anniversary on the 15th that finally some attention is being paid to this issue, and we need those actors to know that the world is watching. And we need that not to just be one day, but that people continue to cover the sheer scale of this - this tragedy, but also cover the inspiring stories. If you look at the emergency response rooms, you see young Sudanese who've created cash apps in local kitchens to completely disrupt the kind of barriers being set up by the belligerent actors to get food into some of the hardest-hit areas. These are stories of courage and of innovation, and ones that are literally a lifeline for many of the Sudanese left behind.
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MR MILLER: We have time for one more. Simon.
QUESTION: Just to follow up on this point about the direct conversations with countries fueling the conflict, does that include Iran? And we've reported that Iranian-made armed drones have had a big impact on the course of the war. Is - so is that something that you're - you've communicated directly with Iran on? Are they included in those countries? And what would be the message --
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: We've had numerous discussions with countries in the region. And in those discussions with countries in the region, we've encouraged them to encourage other countries like Iran not to engage. I won't get into what discussions we may or may not have had with Iran, but in our discussions with other countries in the region we've also asked for their assistance in pressing each other as well as others to stop fueling this war.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
MR PERRIELLO: And the one thing I would just - sorry - add on that is I think this speaks to the idea that for people in the region, there are many, many reasons to become pro-peace right now. The continuation of this conflict and the introduction of additional actors and additional negative elements only takes the situation into a more destabilizing direction in addition to the human costs of this. And we think it's very important for people to notice those trend lines and see that this is an opportunity and a moment to switch from either not paying attention, or playing a not-constructive role, to realizing we all benefit, everyone in the region will benefit from finding a path to peace.
MR MILLER: Thank you --
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you.
MR MILLER: -- to you both.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Okay, thank you.
MR MILLER: Ambassador.
QUESTION: Thank you.
