Darfur 24: Agencies
The United Nations has warned that famine in Sudan is “imminent” if humanitarian agencies continue to be prevented from providing relief to those in need. In a grim assessment of the situation in Sudan, the heads of 19 international humanitarian organizations – 12 of which are UN – issued a warning that increasing obstacles to providing aid “rapidly and on a large scale” means that “more people will die.”
In their statement, the humanitarian agencies called on the warring parties to protect civilians, facilitate the access of humanitarian aid, and adopt a nationwide ceasefire.
At a press conference in Geneva on Friday, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that famine “is likely to take hold in large parts of the country, more people will flee to neighboring countries, and children will be exposed to disease and ill health.” Nutrition, women and girls will face more suffering and risks.”
The UN spokesman confirmed that about 18 million people in the country are already suffering from severe hunger, and 3.6 million children suffer from acute malnutrition. These children are at extreme risk, he said, because they are “10 to 11 times more likely to die” than adolescents who receive enough food.
Methodological obstacles
Despite growing needs, aid workers continue to face “systematic barriers and deliberate denial of access by parties to the conflict,” according to the joint statement from the humanitarian agencies.
Mr. Larke stressed that “movements across conflict lines to parts of Khartoum, Darfur, Gezira and Kordofan have stopped since mid-December,” and that in March and April of this year, nearly 860,000 people were deprived of humanitarian aid in these areas.
He added that the conditions for delivering aid are “very bad and dangerous,” stressing that aid workers are being killed, injured, and harassed, while humanitarian supplies are being looted. In addition, the closure of the Adre border crossing from Chad to West Darfur in February reduced aid delivery in Darfur to a “meager” level.
Movements in Darfur
In a more positive development last week, World Food Program trucks were able to enter Sudan from Chad through the Al-Tina border crossing. The UN agency reported that 1,200 metric tons of food supplies were transported to about 116,000 people across the Darfur region.
Lenny Kinzli from the World Food Program in Sudan confirmed that the convoys heading to Central Darfur have reached their final destination, while the convoys heading to 12 destinations in South Darfur, including camps for displaced people in Nyala, are still in the transit stage.
Referring to the commanders of the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, Mr. Larkeh said: “We want these two generals to find a way to resolve their differences not through violence – which kills, maims and rapes hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan – but to do it in another way.”
Low funding
While expressing their concern about the low levels of funding to respond to the crisis, humanitarian organizations also called on donors to urgently fulfill the commitments they made at the International Humanitarian Conference for Sudan, which took place in Paris on April 15.
Nearly five months into the year, Sudan’s $2.7 billion humanitarian appeal is only 16 percent funded.