Nesil Caliskan

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.