UK accused of breaking key aid promise as cuts drive humanitarian crisis in South Sudan
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TBritain has been accused of breaking its promise to provide significant foreign aid to the civil war-torn Sudanese people after it cut off support to neighboring South Sudan, which is hosting a large number of refugees.
When it was announced last February that the UK would reduce its aid budget from 0.5 to 0.3 percent of gross national income, the crisis in Sudan was cited as one of the crises. several priority areasBritain will continue to support, as well as Ukraine and Gaza.
When the UK hosted a Sudan conference in April, the government promised: “won’t look the other way” like
Since then, the crisis in Sudan has continued to spread to its neighbors. More than 150 thousand people lost their lives in the conflicts that started in 2023, and more than 12 million people were forced to leave their homes.
Latest data shows that 1.3 million people They came to South Sudan in search of safety. However, the amount of aid received this year has reached the lowest level since the country was founded in 2011.
Britain has cut its aid to South Sudan by more than 40 percent, from $131 million (£97 million) in 2024 to $75 million (£56 million) in 2025, according to data tracked by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Other major donors to cut aid include the United States ($708 million to $283 million) and Germany ($102 million to $63 million), according to OCHA.
“Humanitarian aid is a lifeline for people in South Sudan and neither the system nor the people were prepared for these disruptions,” said Shabnam Baloch, country director for Oxfam South Sudan. Independent.
“As I went around contacting a lot of different donors to get more money, I noticed there was a lot of donor fatigue, with many arguing that they were pouring billions of dollars into the country with little visible results.
“But even if South Sudan looks like this
Conditions are expected to drop further next year, with outages from countries like the UK really hurting. Ms. Baloch says humanitarian groups in South Sudan are poised to enter a state of “over-prioritization” as funding for ongoing, less acute needs is ignored and only people with the “most extreme needs” are assisted.
“This year we were able to support 770,000 people, but next year we will be able to support less than half that,” says Ms Baloch. “We support everything from food distribution to sanitation. No one else will fill the gap we left, so people will really suffer.”
Asked whether international donors such as the UK should support South Sudan as part of their response to Sudan, Shabnam Baloch has a clear answer: Expansion into neighboring countries should be seen as part of the overall response to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
“Donors, especially the UK, should take a regional approach when talking about the Sudan crisis,” he says. “Other neighboring countries, including Chad and South Sudan, are already in a state of crisis and do not have the capacity to deal with refugees on their own.
In response to the allegations made in this article, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The UK will always stand with innocent civilians in Sudan caught up in this terrible conflict and humanitarian crisis, and the prime minister’s commitment to maintaining this support for Sudan remains unwavering.
“We have donated over £146 million this year alone and since the conflict began, UK aid has provided life-saving support to more than a million people, treating children with severe malnutrition, providing water and medicine and supporting rape survivors.
“We will continue to do everything we can to end this conflict and deliver humanitarian aid to millions of people in desperate situations.”
‘‘Population continues to increase’
Stories from the Renk transit center, a refugee processing center in South Sudan’s northern Upper Nile state, help show how serious the impact of aid cuts is on the plight of refugees coming across the Sudanese border.
At the beginning of December, Renk hosted an estimated 44,000 refugees and returnees; this includes more than 11,000 people at the transit center, several times more than intended.
Facilities are severely overloaded, with only one clean water tap for every 433 people (far outside the accepted humanitarian standard of 250), and sanitation problems are extreme.
“The population continues to grow every day and everyone faces many challenges, from finding enough food to accessing materials or poles to build shelter,” said Sirivanos Manjera, Oxfam’s program manager in Renk. Independent.
Mr Manjera said the International Organization for Migration had been unable to provide transport assistance to new arrivals for the past two weeks, meaning new arrivals were staying longer than the two weeks for which the World Food Program provides ration cards on arrival. Stories of theft, drug use and gender-based violence are common.
Due to aid cuts, many organizations, especially the healthcare sector, had to completely close their activities. Oxfam, which runs sanitation and water services at the color plant, was almost forced to withdraw last month due to lack of funding.
At the same time, the number of cleaners at the transit center has dropped from 40 to 15, and the maintenance staff has dropped from 10 to five, Mr. Manjera said.
Aid workers are trying to stop the spread of infection as health centers lack protective equipment and soap. There were more than 1,500 cases of cholera in October 2024, with 14 cases recorded in the first week of this month alone.
Hepatitis E, spread through contaminated food or water, is also quite common, with 1,131 cases total and nine cases in the first week of December. “Given the constant influx of people, it is very difficult for us to contain these diseases,” Mr. Manjera says.
Things are further complicated by the threat of floods, which have displaced nearly 300,000 people in South Sudan this year, as well as climatic impacts, including extreme heat.
While Oxfam spoke IndependentThe system, which consists of small reservoirs from which Renk residents meet their water needs during the dry season, was evaporating so quickly due to intense heat that it was about to dry out by the end of January, instead of normally lasting until June.
In such a situation, Mr. Manjera says, NGOs would have to spend huge amounts of money to transport bottled water in trucks to ensure there is enough water.
People who have experienced tremendous trauma before reaching Renk are experiencing desperate, life-threatening conditions.
“I watched my wife and my children being killed in front of my eyes. Everything after that [on the way here] – harassment, roads, never-ending hunger – I just got dust in my eyes,” said a woman from Renk.
“I learned to bargain with the cruelest men at every checkpoint, selling my honor piece by piece to give my children another mile of safety. I didn’t come here: I fought my way here, carrying the weight and five lives in my empty hands.”
Another woman said: “I’m only 21 years old, but I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime running. First, running from the bombs, then from the people who threw us out. While I should be dreaming of my future, I’m carrying the future of four scared little faces on my back. My childhood ended the day they pushed us from the border to Renk.”
The refugee influx comes as conditions in South Sudan are already difficult for many.
More than 80 percent of the population lives in poverty; This rate was around 50 percent in 2011, when the country was founded. The UN estimates that nearly half the population (6 million people) are currently living with extreme hunger and there is a serious risk of impoverishment in the country. plunge into famine in the coming months.
Conflicts have revived in South Sudan in recent months. Nearly 445,000 people have been forced to flee their homes this year and nearly 1,000 patients with gunshot wounds have been treated in hospitals supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has also echoed warnings that aid cuts are pushing essential services to “breaking point”.
This article was produced as part of The Independent. Rethinking Global Aid project
