October 22, Nairobi — Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commissions bureaucratic barriers and delays have prevented seven million Sudanese people from receiving emergency food and medicine, Tom Perriello, U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan, said on Monday in a post on X. “Starvation cannot be a weapon of war,” he said.
Perriello called on the commission to do more to facilitate the United Nations and other agencies access to all parts of Sudan, including guaranteeing the Adre border crossing remains open. This came after the U.S. alongside the U.K. and other donor countries, issued a joint statement calling on the warring parties to stop blocking access to humanitarian aid in Sudan.
“Bureaucratic impediments by both the Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission and the Sudan Agency for Relief and Humanitarian Operations continue to impede the delivery of assistance at the necessary scale,” the statement said.
Last week, UN experts also accused the warring parties in Sudan of using “starvation tactics” against 25 million civilians and faced one of the worst famine in decades.
Adre Border Crossing
The Adre border with Chad reopened on August 15 for three months to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, following pressure from international bodies. Since its reopening, over 200 trucks carrying essential aid for over 600,000 people have passed through the crossing, the UN recently said.
Last week, the Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS) Group, an international coalition focused on the Sudan crisis, called for the indefinite extension of human atria access through the crossing. “The Adre crossing is a lifeline for the Sudanese people,” a statement released on October said.
However on Saturday, Sudan’s finance minister Gibril Ibrahim, called for the immediate closure of the crossing, alleging that it had become a conduit for weapons reaching the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“The West and organizations that pushed for opening the Adre crossing for humanitarian purposes have inadvertently facilitated the supply of lethal weapons to the RSF militia,” Ibrahim stated on X. “This crossing must be closed without delay.”