Sudan

Baroness Suttie Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the right reverend Prelate and congratulate him on his powerful valedictory speech and on securing this extremely important and long overdue debate. In the 14 months since our last debate on Sudan in this House, on every level the situation in Sudan has deteriorated dramatically.

As I said in the debate in September 2024, I had the privilege of working in Khartoum in 2023 with my noble friends Lord Purvis and Lord Oates. I refer to my register of interests. So much of Khartoum, as so much of Sudan, that I grew to know and love, now lies in ruins. I was privileged to work with some truly inspirational people who were working tirelessly to fight for a democratic future for Sudan. Like so many Sudanese, most of the people I worked with are now living in exile. As Samia, an eminent Sudanese lawyer and women’s rights activist, said to me this week, “The war has not only destroyed buildings and infrastructure. It has destroyed women and girls’ security and safety”.

Women and girls live under constant threat of violence on a daily basis. According to UNICEF, 12.1 million people—equivalent to 25% of the population—are at risk of gender-based violence. Hunger and rape are now routinely being used as instruments of war. There are reports that young women and even very young girls, as young as five years old, have been subjected to the most appalling violence, including sexual violence. Samia, who for me is the very personification of our previous hopes for Sudan, reminded me that what is happening in her country must never be regarded as being just about statistics. Behind every statistic is the shattered life of a human being.

What is happening in Sudan matters to us all and, frankly, should shame us all. It is our duty, as we are doing through this debate today, to raise our voices and to give the people of Sudan hope, just as it matters that the current ongoing atrocities, as the right reverend Prelate said, are fully investigated and the perpetrators eventually brought to justice.

I make three final brief points in the remaining time. We must find a way to ensure that the global arms embargo is effective, as it clearly currently is not, and to extend it to the whole of Sudan. We need to find a way to ensure that immediate humanitarian assistance reaches those who need it most. But we also need to be thinking now about longer-term assistance—clearing the country of land mines and the huge task of eventually rebuilding the country, as well as providing support for those who have suffered so much—most particularly through supporting organisations that work with women and girls.