Sudan

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

From all our interactions on Sudan, the right reverend Prelate knows how highly I regard him. I thank him for bringing this debate as he ends his service in this House. The Minister is also aware of what I called for last week. I hope she has read my appeal to the Leader of the House yesterday evening in my response to the Prime Minister’s G20 Statement, in which Sudan warranted only a passing reference.

In recent weeks and days, anyone seeing what has been happening in the country I love will have witnessed the very worst and the very best of humanity, with calls for a cessation of violence ridiculed by the SAF and the re-emergence of the repressive internal intelligence service, NISS, and Islamist forces, and the RSF cynically saying it has a ceasefire while committing atrocities. At the same time, we have seen Sudanese doctors trying, under incredible personal danger, to keep medical facilities going and, as we heard, local emergency rooms and community kitchens of local civilians keeping a semblance of food services going under literally hellish conditions and threat. They are the best of humanity in the face of the worst.

As we have heard, the main victims are women and children. Some of the examples of the atrocities are searing. Foreign supplied drones, paid for by looted natural resources, are as we speak over the skies of civilian areas collecting intelligence and data, and will be armed to target civilians.

Tools to protect civilians have been authorised by the UN Security Council resolution of over a year ago. It is simply the case that the will for action has been and continues to be absent. Today, I press the Minister for a specific, authorised and deliverable action to put in measures to create no-drone zones in civilian areas. We have the capability, the technology and the authorisation to protect civilians. We need the political and diplomatic will to enable this to be put in place—and it is urgent.

Even here at home—the Minister is well aware of my calls last year, well before we saw the preventable atrocities—and even now, after lengthy correspondence that I have had with the Disasters Emergency Committee, we still do not have a public appeal matched by the Government. The world’s worst humanitarian crisis—urgent and pressing—does not have sufficient public and media awareness to trigger an appeal, the chief executive told me. I appeal to the Minister today to speak to the DEC, to appeal to the DEC and to work with the DEC to have a public appeal that the Government can support.

I am still hopeful for the day when the rightful civilian democratic governance of Sudan can be seen. I hope for there to be one Sudan, where diversity is recognised and not used as a pretext for violence. But for that hope not to be entirely extinguished, we need the UK and others to step up with leadership, focus and urgency. Protecting the civilians is by far the most urgent task, and I hope we can hear of concrete actions from the Government.