Khartoum, May 5(Darfur24) The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Thursday that food products destined for needy people in Sudan worth an estimated $13-14 million have been looted since fighting broke out last month.
Speaking to Reuters from Port Sudan by video link, Eddie Rowe, WFP’s country director, said looting was rampant in the country and some reports of theft of WFP supplies were still under investigation.
He added, “We estimated that about 17,000 tons were looted, some of them in our warehouses and others from trucks… This is equivalent to between 13 and 14 million dollars, in the form of food costs only. Almost every day we receive reports of more looting.”
Rowe’s comments come a day after Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, appealed to both sides of the conflict in Sudan to pledge safe passage for humanitarian aid and staff.
The United Nations said the conflict in Sudan has forced some 100,000 people to flee to neighboring countries and hampered aid deliveries in a country where a third of the population already depends on humanitarian aid.
Rowe said the World Food Program urgently needed to buy more supplies for Sudan.
“We know that if we do not buy commodities now, our stocks will run out in the next two or three months,” he said.
“We have already started communicating with our donors to see how quickly we can procure and also deliver in locations that we can reach and where it is relatively safe to provide assistance,” he added.
Armed confrontations broke out in the middle of this month between the army and the Rapid Support Forces in the capital, Khartoum, and a number of cities in the states of Darfur, killing more than 500 people and injuring thousands, according to the World Health Organization, and hundreds of thousands fled to neighboring countries.