With millions in need, Saudi announces Sudan aid funding conference

With millions in need, Saudi announces Sudan aid funding conference

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced an international conference next week to gather aid pledges for war-ravaged Sudan, where the United Nations says more than half the population urgently needs assistance and protection.

The pledging conference will be held on June 19, the official Saudi Press Agency said, citing the foreign ministry and adding that it would be jointly led with Qatar, Egypt, Germany and the European Union, as well as UN agencies.

Saudi Arabia and the United States have been mediating in the eight-week war between Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemeti, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

A record 25 million people -- more than half the population -- are in need of aid and protection, according to the UN, but as of late May, the world body's needs for $2.6 million to address the crisis were only 13 percent funded.

Entire districts of Khartoum no longer have running water, electricity is only available for a few hours a week, most hospitals in combat zones are not functioning, and aid facilities have been looted.

The country's western Darfur region has also been a centre of the fighting. Darfur governor Mini Minawi, a