France, April 15 -- Germany is hosting the conference on Wednesday in an effort to revive stalled peace talks and mobilise aid, but Khartoum said it was organised without consultation and warned that engaging with paramilitary groups would undermine state sovereignty.

Germany is aiming to secure more than €1 billion in funding commitments at the meeting.

The scale of suffering is severe. The vast majority of Sudanese people now live in poverty, 11 million have been uprooted from their homes and nearly twice as many face hunger.

"People are exhausted," Amgad Ahmed, 42, a resident of Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city, told the French news agency AFP. "Three years of war have worn people down. We have lost work, savings and any sense o...