ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today was the third day of peace talks trying to end the catastrophic civil war in Sudan. The Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been fighting for 16 months now. The war has led to the world's worst hunger crisis, according to the United Nations. It's also the world's worst displacement crisis. More than 10 million people have been forced to leave their homes because of the war. And neither side in the war is at the table for this round of peace talks led by the U.S. Tom Perriello is U.S. special envoy for Sudan, and he joins us from Geneva. Thank you for being here.
TOM PERRIELLO: Thank you so much for having me on this.
SHAPIRO: So apparently, the paramilitary RSF did send delegates to Switzerland, but at the last minute, they decided not to attend the talks, and the Sudanese Army has also refused to show up. How do you lead peace talks when neither of the warring parties is present?
PERRIELLO: Well, first of all, the Rapid Support Forces actually did arrive in Geneva. Because the army has not arrived, we've not been able to engage in full mediation in person, but we have been doing consultations not just with RSF. But this is 2024, so we're working the phones along with the Saudis and the Egyptians back to the army, and they were blocking the talk for five months. And President Biden and Secretary Blinken said, the Sudanese people are clear. Too many are dying. Too many are starving. We're going to go forward with this, and we're finding a way to bring the militia and the army into that conversation.
SHAPIRO: And obviously, the long-term goal is to end the war. But without the two sides at the table, that seems very far off. What is the short-term goal that, in these last three days, you've been trying to achieve? What are you hoping to get?
PERRIELLO: Well, just yesterday, after many, many months of pushing to open the Adre border crossing, which is the gateway into the place where some of the most acute starvation and famine is, we did see the government of Sudan announce the opening of that border, which is excellent news, long overdue. But it also leads to a whole bunch of things that we can then work in the room, trying to make sure the note verbale comes through, the humanitarian groups are ready to go and a number of other issues.
So if we can make that happen and make that happen quicker, that's a huge contribution. And we have similar situations across Khartoum and Sennar and many other parts of Sudan where over 25 million people have been displaced from their homes or are facing acute hunger. It's just a scale that you can't even get your head around.
SHAPIRO: As we speak right now, there are also peace talks to try to end the war in Gaza. Why do you think the Sudanese civil war has gotten so much less international attention, including from the U.S., than the war in Gaza or the one in Ukraine, despite the staggering hunger and displacement and death toll?
PERRIELLO: Well, this is the question we hear from Sudanese every day. I mean, obviously, race is a factor in views of Africa, but also, long before the attacks on October 7 and the war in Gaza - you know, this war began six months before that, and it is not something that people have been covering. But at the end of the day, the Sudanese people - it's a country of 50 million people with incredible diversity. And it is something, actually, of tremendous regional security and global security significance. But I think the overwhelming issue is humanitarian, and we, as the world, have not covered it enough and done enough.
And what was clear from, you know, President Biden and Secretary Blinken is, we were not going to fit that description. And over the last three days, the energy has been just electric because there's so much pent-up interest in trying to help.
SHAPIRO: You've accused both sides of cowardice in using starvation as a weapon of war. Do you think that is now just a baked-in feature of this conflict, or is there a way, even if peace is not achieved, to alleviate the hunger and the suffering in the meantime?
PERRIELLO: Well, there has to be a way, and there always has been a way. The issue is that the International Humanitarian Law and Geneva Conventions have applied to armies and militias. In wartime, you don't have to have peace to respect these basic rules, which is innocent civilians should be protected. They should have access to food and medicine. And we have seen both the army and the RSF violate that systematically.
Let's be clear. This is a human-created famine. This was not a drought or a disease on the crops. This was a decision by the RSF to burn crops and loot warehouses and then of the army to shut down borders. We're really glad that the Adre border opening is a step back in the right direction. We need to see reciprocal guarantees by the RSF on protections of convoys and civilians. We need to see the shelling and bombing respect civilian areas and the departure from hospitals and schools and homes. We have much to do here, but the energy is just so strong because people in the diplomatic community and Sudanese advocates have been wanting something like this for a while, and we're going to push it as far as we can.
SHAPIRO: That's Tom Perriello, U.S. special envoy for Sudan joining us from Geneva, where he's engaged in peace talks to try to bring an end to Sudan's civil war. Thank you so much.
PERRIELLO: Thank you, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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