(MENAFN) The United Kingdom announced an additional £5 million ($6.6 million) in humanitarian aid for Sudan, as UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned that global responses are “currently failing to deal with the humanitarian crisis and the devastating conflict” devastating the country.

Speaking at the Manama Dialogue Conference in Bahrain, Cooper emphasized the dire situation: “In Sudan right now, there is just despair… For too long, this terrible conflict has been neglected, while suffering has simply increased.”

She condemned the “truly horrifying and utterly intolerable scenes” in El-Fasher, where roughly 260,000 people—half of them children—are trapped in famine-like conditions, surrounded by violence and cut off from aid.

The UK Foreign Office said the new funding will support emergency food delivery, medical assistance, and protection for survivors of sexual violence, including £2 million specifically for victims of rape and sexual abuse.

“The reports from Darfur in recent days are truly horrifying,” Cooper said. “Atrocities, mass executions, starvation, and the devastating use of rape as a weapon of war, with women and children bearing the brunt of the largest humanitarian crisis in the 21st century.”

The conflict, pitting Sudan’s army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 15, 2023, has claimed about 20,000 lives and displaced more than 15 million people. Multiple regional and international mediation efforts have so far failed to end the fighting, according to UN and local reports.

MENAFN02112025000045017169ID1110282528