THE retiring Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, has used his valedictory speech within the House of Lords to attract attention to the humanitarian situation in Sudan, which was, he said, “so dire that ‘urgent’ doesn’t do justice to the necessity for motion”.
During a debate on the subject last week, Bishop Baines, who has been one in every of the Lords Spiritual since 2014, described Sudan as “a rustic I like, where I actually have friends, and which I actually have visited various times”.
Its “suffering”, he said, was “almost unbearable, the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet. . . Whatever the causes of and motivations behind the present conflict, it’s civilians — women, children, young men, and vulnerable ethnic groups — who’re being targeted and abused in essentially the most inhumane ways.”
He offered some scale of the conflict. “It is estimated that as much as 150,000 people have died, and 13 million have been displaced, 9.6 million internally and 4.3 million in exile. Some 25 to 30 million persons are hungry, malnourished, or severely malnourished. Save the Children estimates that 16 million children are in need of aid. . . Access to help is ceaselessly blocked, and funding is insufficient to the necessity.”
He continued: “In so-called illegal immigration to the UK, Sudan is now essentially the most represented group.”
The Bishop went on to stipulate “areas where more may be achievable now”, starting with the UK’s “responsibility to step up its leadership of partner nations in working with the Quad[rilateral Security Dialogue] and others to use diplomatic, economic, political, and moral pressure to: bring an end to the conflict; stem the flow of arms . . . and to carry publicly to account those countries which enable this brutality to proceed; and to mobilise . . . immediate protection of civilians and humanitarian staff. Key to that is the necessity to make all sides within the conflict seriously and unmistakably aware that they will likely be accountable in the long run for his or her actions now.”
He emphasised: “the necessity for a diplomatic surge is evident, but resolutions by themselves is not going to bring a ceasefire or a peace that in the long run results in civilian rule. . . The humanitarian disaster, the worst on the earth, cannot simply be observed from a distance. It needs concerted and determined attention and motion.”
Continuing the controversy, Baroness Sutie (Lib Dem) said that “the situation in Sudan has deteriorated dramatically” — its “women and girls live under constant threat of violence on a each day basis.” It “should shame us all”, she said.
Lord Alton (crossbench), quoted from his foreword to a recent report on Sudan, Rivers of Blood: “We cannot say we didn’t know. The evidence is here. The voices are here. The responsibility is ours.”
Lord Sentamu, a former Archbishop of York and former Chair of Christian Aid (2021-23), described Bishop Baines as “a tireless supporter of Sudan, even almost endangering his life”. Lord Sentamu asked how far progress “to get teams into Sudan to analyze those atrocities and hold the perpetrators to account has got? Our words have to be matched by our actions. We must change into peacemakers, not peace-lovers.”
The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, asked about support for NGOs and native actors as they experienced “significant barriers to accessing funding because of stringent UK compliance requirements”.
Responding, the Foreign Office Minister, Baroness Chapman, paid tribute to Bishop Baines’s “longstanding commitment to Sudan and its people”, and recalled that “the Archbishop of Sudan selected to hitch him at Ripon Cathedral for a recent service.”
She acknowledged “the deep concern from right across the House in regards to the dire humanitarian situation in Sudan, at a time after we must galvanise motion to stop the war and end the suffering”.
She also commented on UK efforts within the UN, on humanitarian aid, and said that “support for the people of Sudan will remain a priority for this Government, as I comprehend it does for the entire House.”
