Nyala , March 17(Darfur 24)
The coordinator of refugees and IDP camps in Darfur, Yacoub Abdullah Free, said on Saturday that the scarcity of food commodities in the displacement camps has made the displaced wait for death, in light of the prevention of aid from entering the region.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, intends to notify the UN Security Council that Sudan has entered a cycle of extreme hunger resulting from the conflict, while Human Rights Watch has called for sanctions to be imposed on those obstructing the arrival of aid to Darfur.
In an interview with Darfur 24, Yacoub Free called for the need for aid to enter the displaced people in the camps and for the entire Sudanese people, who are on the verge of entering the stage of true famine.
He said: “In the past, when we asked for relief, some people laughed at us, but today we demand relief and open paths to deliver humanitarian aid to the general Sudanese people. However, suffering is layered, as there are those who have been suffering for more than twenty years and those who have been suffering for ten months.”
He added: “We in the camps do not have hatred in our hearts, and we love all the Sudanese people and we have been patient for 21 years, through which we taught everyone what patriotism and homeland are, but hatred has been inherited on us now by depriving us of humanitarian aid.”
Free stressed that those who created the ongoing war cannot bear it for 10 years, because in less than a year they experienced the suffering of war.
The Sudanese authorities yielded to pressure to bring in aid in light of the growing crises, as they agreed to deliver relief through crossings under the control of the army and its allied movements.
Free said that whoever seeks to starve people will find hatred from everyone, while the step of allowing the entry of humanitarian aid is considered an advanced stage of awareness, expressing his hope that it will be implemented on the ground.
Frei described the ongoing war as being against citizens who are dying from shells on their flanks and pleading with hunger due to the denial of humanitarian aid.
Hundreds of displaced people in Darfur camps were forced to eat “imbas” animal feed to satisfy their hunger, while others ate ants and tree bark.
Human Rights Watch, citing a commander in Kalma camp, says that 500 to 600 children and at least 80 elderly camp residents have died since the beginning of the war as a result of lack of food and medical supplies.