Sudan

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join everyone in thanking the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds for securing this debate and for his contribution over many years, and I wish him all the best for the future.

I vividly remember the Rwandan genocide. As a young journalist in country Australia in the age before the internet, the postman delivered my paper-thin copy of the Guardian Weekly. I can still picture some of the images it printed, images that shocked me. Then, the diplomatic world knew what was happening and failed to act, but the general public broadly did not. Communications operated differently then. Since then, our understanding of mass atrocity crimes has grown a great deal, in part because of the genocide against the Tutsis. We can and do predict them, but where we have not advanced is in action to prevent them. At the briefing last week that the right reverend Prelate referred to, I heard about the events in El Fasher. They were described as the most well-worn and predicted mass killing in human history. We have satellite images that can identify where each individual human being lost their life—a father, a son, a brother, a mother who is now a bloodstain in the sand—and we have images that show where those bodies were burned or buried. Before that, we had satellite images that showed the preparation for massacre, the building of the berm around the city that created the killing field and the assembling of the forces to commit the massacre in a city in which perhaps 1.5 million people were cowering, and the world still did nothing.

This debate is focused on humanitarian need, and my focus is particularly on the protection of those who remain alive but at acute risk. The right reverend Prelate referred to a script for future massacres based on what has happened already. Our job, surely, is to cut off that script to stop it being played out.

We heard at that briefing about effective leadership. Britain should have a role, and effective leadership can come only from No. 10, from Sir Keir Starmer. Will the Minister say whether we going to see that leadership? We know that traditional multilateral fora are of limited use, so we need much more creative approaches. Are resources—the atrocity prevention unit, the FCDO and other resources available to the Government—being put into the diplomatic surge that was called for last week?

I will just pick up two very quick further points. One, of course, is on the now sadly inevitable reports of conflict-related sexual violence. What support are those victims going to get? The other relates to a scoping visit from the Mines Advisory Group in July this year. We have real capacity in Britain in mine clearing and dealing with unexploded ordnance. What are the Government doing in that area?