Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our guests today. Thank you for your work.
Even though it's been over a year, I would just begin by asking you to express our thanks to members of the mission who were evacuated and who continue to work.
In those days following the April 15 eruption of hostilities, I was following hour by hour what was happening in the breach of our mission, which was in a convenient place close to the airport. However, it was also in the worst place, being close to the airport. They were very precarious days, and they were very courageous. I hope you pass that on.
I'm a little less bleak about the future situation than Mr. Bergeron is. I think that my visits to Sudan have shown me the resilience, particularly of the women of Sudan and civil society organizations coming out of al-Bashir's tyranny. I think there was a tremendous resurgence of democratic hopefulness that was a threat to at least two people and their cohorts. I am hopeful.
I want to follow up a little bit on Mr. Epp's comments and questions, because he was getting to an important part.
Within the country there are about 10 million displaced people. There are about eight million internally displaced people and about two million refugees. Folks, that's literally the size of half of the countries of our world. Fifty per cent of the countries have more than 10 million and 50% have fewer than 10 million.
I want to think about the effects on Chad; Central African Republic; Ethiopia in particular; and a little bit on South Sudan, with family connections. I wonder what our capacity is to help the migrating people.
I've been to Al-Fāshir. It's not going to be easy to get in there with aid, because conflict continues. Four hours ago there was a major set of attacks in Sudan with the SAF coming back against the RSF.
What about the other countries? Where are we at, and how can Canadians help?