Agencies, November 04 (Darfur24)
The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Denise Brown, warned that fuel shortages have stranded hundreds of trucks, preventing humanitarian workers from reaching communities in need and delivering food and other essential supplies, including aid for children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
In an interview with UN News, Brown said escalating drone attacks and strikes on energy and fuel infrastructure were disrupting essential services, restricting humanitarian operations and increasing fear among civilians.
She said drone attacks had intensified over the previous two weeks, describing the targeting of civilian infrastructure, including energy and fuel facilities, as systematic.
Brown cited the case of a hospital outside Khartoum where a power outage forced the suspension of dialysis sessions for 25 patients. The facility had no generators or solar panels to provide backup electricity, she said, citing information from World Health Organization colleagues.
Fuel shortages are also disrupting water supplies, healthcare and childbirth services, while affecting transport and livelihoods. Brown said fuel queues in Khartoum stretched for long distances, with some tuk-tuk drivers waiting for several days to refuel.
She also said World Food Programme convoys had come under attack seven times this year, bringing the total number of attacks over the past two years to 20. The attacks had caused deaths and destroyed food aid intended for vulnerable communities.
Brown said poor rainfall over the past two months had further aggravated the humanitarian crisis, leaving farmers struggling with insufficient rain and forcing people in parts of Darfur and Kordofan to flee in search of food. Millions of others remain displaced by the war, amid the deterioration of health and social services.
She called for increased humanitarian funding, recalling a visit two weeks earlier to a displacement camp in the Abu Shandi area of Blue Nile State, where residents told her they urgently needed food.
“They have no money; they have left everything behind. They need us, and we, in turn, need donors,” she said, describing the difficulty of asking displaced people to wait for assistance when they had lost their belongings and had no means to meet their basic needs.
Brown warned that acute malnutrition rates had exceeded emergency thresholds in many parts of Sudan, particularly areas directly affected by the conflict. She said the priority of the UN and its partners was to save lives and provide essential services and supplies.
She urged member states to recognise the scale of the crisis and make serious efforts to de-escalate the conflict, saying there was no justification for repeated attacks on power and fuel facilities.
Brown said responsibility for ending the attacks rested primarily with those carrying them out.
She also appealed for additional funding, noting that the World Food Programme had been forced to reduce the number of people receiving assistance and cut food rations.
