Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-04-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they consider the impact to be of the displacement of people within Darfur on the legitimacy of the referendum taking place between 11 and 13 April.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

We remain concerned by the timing of the Darfur referendum due to ongoing violence and the absence of a peace agreement. The continued fighting and level of civilian displacement in Jebel Marra is particularly troubling, and brings in to question the viability of holding the referendum at this time. We have raised such concerns with the Government of Sudan. We have also pressed for full humanitarian access to be granted, including at the UN Security Council and bilaterally as part our recent strategic dialogue with the Government of Sudan, led by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Africa Director. Officials from our Embassy in Khartoum are monitoring the situation closely.