Ongoing Sudan, Gaza wars highlight int’l community’s incapacity, reluctance: Egypt at TICAD meeting

CAIRO – 24 August 2024: Foreign Affairs Minister Badr Abdelatty underscored that the enduring conflicts in Sudan and Gaza serve as stark examples of the international community's incapacity or unwillingness to intervene.

Abdelatty delivered this message during a speech at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) Ministerial Meeting held in the Japanese capital on Saturday.

The primary focus of the TICAD Ministerial Meeting 2024 is to delineate medium and long-term development priorities in the upcoming years for the partnership between Africa and Japan.

 

The top Egyptian diplomat stressed the importance of exploring strategies to tackle the current threats to peace and security in Africa and globally, citing the inadequacy of existing tools in addressing the intricate challenges faced by the international community.

He emphasized the critical need for substantial reforms in the structure of international peace and security to enhance representation, align better with present realities, and have a more significant impact on human lives.

Abdelatty reaffirmed Egypt's commitment to supporting Africa's post-conflict reconstruction and development agenda, particularly in light of Egypt's chairmanship of the Steering Committee of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD.

He expressed Egypt's eagerness to strengthen the interlinked relationship between peace and development as the optimal approach for conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and sustainability.

Highlighting the importance of Africa's 2063 Agenda's Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan in achieving peace and prosperity on the continent, Abdelatty emphasized the significance of partnerships within the African Union, including collaborations with TICAD, as crucial tools to realize these ambitions.

Gaza, Sudan tragedies

The Gaza war has persisted for over 10 months, with relentless Israeli attacks killing 40,334 individuals and injuring 93,356, as reported by Gaza's health ministry on Saturday.

Furthermore, the war has led to the displacement of the majority of Gaza's 2.2 million residents and pushed the strip to the brink of famine.

Egypt, alongside Qatar and the United States, is actively mediating between Hamas and Israel to secure a lasting ceasefire and broker a deal for the release of dozens of Israeli captives still held by the Palestinian movement since the October 7 attack.

Cairo is currently hosting pivotal negotiations involving representatives from Israel, Hamas, and the US, with the outcome of these talks yet to be confirmed.

In Sudan, the conflict that began on April 15, 2023, persists between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), claiming the lives of thousands of civilians.

More than 10 million people, a majority of whom are children under 18, were internally displaced and over 2 million individuals have crossed borders into neighboring countries since the conflict's onset, including Egypt, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Displacement Tracking Mechanism update on July 23.

Egypt has consistently called for an end to hostilities in Sudan and spearheaded various initiatives to address the crisis.