New Security Council session on Sudan

The Security Council will hold a briefing today, Monday, morning on food insecurity in Sudan under the agenda item “Protection of civilians in armed conflict”.

According to the “Security Council Report” website, the briefing is expected to be delivered by the Director of the Operations Division at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Edem Osorno, and the Deputy Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Beth Bechdol.

The meeting was requested by the United Kingdom (penholder on Sudan), along with Guyana and Slovenia, and with the support of Denmark and Sierra Leone. Sudan is expected to participate under Rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure.

The website specializing in monitoring the situation in the Security Council expected that the members of the Council would present different views on how to describe the state of food insecurity in the country.

During previous sessions, Russia criticized the Council for ignoring the views of the authorities in Port Sudan regarding the state of food insecurity, and raised questions about the methodology used to collect data and the Council’s access to the affected areas.

The website did not rule out that Russia would take advantage of the opportunity of Monday’s meeting to highlight the efforts made by the Sudanese central authorities to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The Sudanese authorities rejected the results of the Humanitarian Aid Committee report issued on December 24, 2024, describing it as speculative and lacking field data.

The “UN Report Website” expected that some members would urge the authorities to respect the results of the Humanitarian Aid Committee and cooperate with relevant agencies to facilitate humanitarian aid efforts.

During the drafting of the resolution submitted to the Security Council session on Sudan on 18 November, a number of countries, including France, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia and Switzerland, supported highlighting the risk of famine and the current famine conditions in the Zamzam camp for internally displaced persons.
However, objections from some members, including Russia, led the drafters to review the language used in the operational paragraphs of the final draft to “already acute food insecurity”.

Russia used its veto power against the draft resolution, which led to its fall.

Algeria is the current president of the Security Council.