SUDAN is facing a “massive” humanitarian aid crisis, the United Nations warned yesterday as the proxy war in the country raged on.
The fighting between the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian backed military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), supported by the United Arab Emirates, is stopping aid from reaching millions in desperate need of help.
World Food Programme deputy executive director Carl Skau told Al Jazeera that his organisation was providing aid in Sudan to about five million people.
He said: “The needs are massive. We are talking about 20m people acutely food insecure with some six million in starvation. It is a massive crisis and what we’re able to do isn’t enough.”
Mr Skau said that the WFP had “tried every way possible” to get aid to those that need it, including by air drops, digital cash transfers and by convoys outside besieged areas.
But he told Al Jazeera it had not been possible to get aid to the population of violence hit areas such as the city of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
The city was under siege for 18 months before the RSF took control in October. Since then, the RSF have been accused of committing atrocities against the population, including rapes and executions.
Mr Skau warned that the attention of the international community should also focus on the Kordofan region where fierce fighting is taking place between the military and the RSF.
He said: “The fighting is intensifying and they’re also besieged areas.
“World attention needs to be on Sudan now and diplomatic efforts need to be stepped up in order to prevent the same disaster we saw in el-Fasher.”
But the plea from the WFP may already be too late.
On Friday, a drone attack by the RSF hit a kindergarten in Kalogi, South Kordofan, killing 50 people, including 33 children, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Network (SDN).
The SDN said that paramedics on the scene were targeted in “a second unexpected attack.”
Emergency Lawyers, a rights group tracking violence against civilians in Sudan reported in a statement on Saturday the second strike on paramedics treating survivors in Kalogi and said that “a third civilian site near the previous two” was also attacked.
The group condemned the RSF attack, calling them “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians, especially children and vital civilian infrastructure.”
The death toll is expected to be higher, but communication blackouts in the area have made it difficult to report casualties.
(morning star online)
