Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in East Sudan.

The UK remains extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Eastern Sudan. The United Nations’ ‘Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan 2015’ estimates that 328,000 people are in need of humanitarian assistance in three states of East Sudan (Red Sea, Kassala and Gedaref), out of a total of 5.4 million in need across the country. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is supporting some 92,000 long-term refugees in the east. DFID is providing a further £38 million over the next two years for additional humanitarian assistance to Sudan, including Darfur.

Delays and restrictions imposed by the Government of Sudan in the issuance of travel permits has limited our ability to conduct our own recent assessment but we continue to work closely with NGOs and International Agencies to better understand the situation. We, along with our partners (EU and US) continue to press the Government of Sudan to allow unrestricted humanitarian access but we remain deeply concerned about the situation.