On the recordDecember 5, 2024
I come to the floor today to discuss the terrible ongoing humanitarian situation in Sudan, and the atrocities that are being perpetrated against innocent civilians there every day and to discuss measures that the United States and the U.S. Senate can take to help end the suffering. Since that brutal conflict erupted in April 2023, a staggering 11.8 million people have been displaced within Sudan or fled to neighboring countries. More than half the population--over 25 million people--face acute food insecurity, including 13 million children. And 1.5 million of them are at risk of or facing famine. While the total casualty numbers have been difficult to determine, a new study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's Sudan Research Group estimates that more than 60,000 people died in the Khartoum region alone between April 2023 and June of 2024. That study found that 26,000 people have died as a result of violence. But it also highlighted another awful reality, that starvation and disease are increasingly becoming the leading causes of death reported across Sudan. In a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May of this year, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello suggested that the total death toll could be as high as 150,000 people. Given the scope and scale of this human suffering, the United States and the international community should be doing everything in our power to end the carnage and end the suffering in Sudan.…
