David Lammy warns against hierarchy of suffering as Sudan crisis forgotten
David Lammy warns against hierarchy of suffering as Sudan crisis forgotten
Share:
Britain’s foreign secretary has renewed calls for an international effort to end fighting in the North African country nearly two years after civil war broke out. Sudan’s 21-month-long civil war must not be forgotten due to a “hierarchy of conflicts” as millions suffer, David Lammy has warned.
![[Mr Lammy with malnutrition patients in Adre, Chad, where thousands have fled from neighbouring Sudan]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/24/19/SEI237190742.jpg)
The British foreign secretary has renewed calls for a global effort to end the conflict as he warned it will be “one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes of our lifetime”. Already, nearly four million people have fled the North African country since the start of the war in April 2023.
![[A damaged street in Omdurman, Sudan, which has been ripped apart by a 20-month-long civil war]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/24/19/SEI202011400.jpg)
Hopes of ending the fighting, which has claimed more than 15,000 lives, were dashed in November when Russia vetoed a draft UK-led UN Security Council ceasefire resolution. Yet despite the growing humanitarian crisis, the civil war has failed to attract the same global attention of other conflicts, such as in Gaza and Ukraine.
![[Lammy hit out at Russia for ‘cynically blocking’ a UN motion to help Sudanese refugees as he visited neighbouring Chad]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/24/19/SEI237190525.jpg)
Writing in The Independent, Mr Lammy, who this week visited a refugee camp in neighbouring Chad, said: “I bore witness to what will go down in history as one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes of our lifetimes. “The truth no one wants to admit is that if this was happening on any other continent – in Europe, in the Middle East, or in Asia – there would be far more attention from the media – far more outrage.
“There should be no hierarchy of conflicts, but sadly much of the world acts as if there is one.”. The war started when fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum just two years after a coup in 2021.
