During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spoke about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sudan as the country continues to be ravaged by civil war.
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NewsTranscript
00:01Senator from Nebraska, I'm sorry, New Hampshire.
00:04Well, it's an in-state.
00:08Mr. President, is the Senate in a quorum call?
00:11We are not.
00:12Okay, thank you.
00:14The states are a long way away.
00:16Yes, that's true.
00:18We have higher mountains than Nebraska and New Hampshire.
00:21Mr. President, it wasn't that long ago that Sudan was on a path to recovery after decades of violence and civil war.
00:33Back in 2018, Sudanese citizens took to the streets to protest the conditions in their country.
00:41This movement pushed Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted by the ICC for directing a campaign of mass killing
00:51and rape, out of power.
00:54And this set the country on a course for a better future.
00:59But sadly, that future was disrupted when the military overthrew the civilian-led government of Sudan.
01:06And then, two years ago, the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General al-Burnum,
01:12and the Rapid Support Forces, led by General Hamedi, plunged Sudan into war.
01:21In the two years since, over 150,000 people have died, and 12 million more have been displaced.
01:31And you can see this poster reflects the results of what's happening in Sudan.
01:37In just two years, 12 million more people have been displaced and are in camps.
01:44This is actually one of the nicer camps.
01:49With acute famine levels at historic highs, 30 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid.
02:01And we can see some of the Sudanese people with their dishes lined up to get some assistance.
02:10Now, as so often happens during war, the impact has been especially devastating to women and girls.
02:18During raids by the armed factions, women and girls have been abducted and forced into sexual and domestic slavery.
02:25One UN report found gender-based violence skyrocketed by 288 percent last year.
02:33So, again, we can see the impact.
02:38According to UNICEF, 221 children have been raped, including a case involving a one-year-old baby.
02:50And if this is true, we just can't ignore it as another horrific detail of a distant conflict.
02:57The world is watching, and we must hold the people who are perpetrating these acts accountable for their crimes.
03:06The United States government has determined that both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces
03:12have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during fighting in Sudan.
03:17And the Rapid Support Forces have led a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.
03:26In January of 2025, the U.S. Treasury Department took a positive step.
03:32It sanctioned the leader of the Rapid Support Forces and the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces
03:38for their army's lethal attacks on civilians in Sudan.
03:43But more needs to be done.
03:45Cease-fire after cease-fire has failed.
03:50Peace negotiations have stalled.
03:52And outside countries, the UAE, Turkey, Iran, as well as Russia and China,
04:00continue to send weapons to the factions.
04:03Now, why?
04:04Well, because Russia doesn't want to give up its port access on the Red Sea.
04:09China doesn't want to abandon the nearly $6 billion of investments it's made in Sudan since 2005.
04:17And the UAE doesn't want to abandon Sudan's wartime gold trade.
04:22According to mining industry sources and research by SwissAid,
04:26nearly all of Sudan's gold trade flows through the UAE.
04:30The United States needs to stand up and say, enough is enough.
04:36And for people who say, well, what difference does it make?
04:38That's just, that's Africa.
04:39That's a long way away from the United States.
04:44Why does it matter?
04:45Well, because sadly, what happens in Africa, what happens in Sudan, doesn't stay in Sudan.
04:54If you can't be outraged because of the moral horror of what's happening there,
05:02you should be outraged because the terrorism, the potential disease,
05:09that can cross the borders of Sudan, that can come to the United States.
05:14And we've seen that too often in the past.
05:18Now, as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
05:21I'm committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle,
05:25here in Congress, as well as with folks in the Trump administration,
05:29because we must hold these groups accountable for their war crimes.
05:33We must support them in ending the violence.
05:38Right now, both sides in the war continue to bomb, to raid, to siege schools, markets, and hospitals.
05:47The Sudanese Armed Forces are intentionally denying humanitarian aid.
05:51They're blocking medicine and other relief items.
05:55And the Rapid Support Forces continue to lead an ethnically charged campaign of violence in Darfur.
06:00And sadly, so many of the foreign assistance programs that we had in place have been ended or are under review.
06:14The U.S., the Trump administration, and Congress must create a clear policy to address this conflict.
06:21We must resume foreign assistance to the region and Sudan to limit further humanitarian suffering.
06:27And we must set aside our differences, bring an end to the violence,
06:33and renew our commitment to setting Sudan back on the path to a civilian-led democracy.
06:40Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.