UNITED NATIONS — The Sudanese people are “caught in an inferno of brutal violence” as famine, disease and fighting close in with no end in sight, the UN’s top humanitarian official in the war-ravaged country said on Wednesday.
Clementine Nkweta-Salami told a UN news conference that “horrific atrocities are being committed with reckless abandon, reports of rape, torture and ethnically motivated violence are pouring in,” communities and families have been torn apart and nearly 9 million people have been forced to flee their homes in what is now the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Earlier this month, the UN food agency warned Sudan’s warring factions that there was a serious risk of widespread famine and deaths in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they do not allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region – a view reiterated on Wednesday by Nkweta. Salami.
In mid-April 2023, Sudan became embroiled in conflict, when long-simmering tensions between the army led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo erupted into street fighting in the capital Khartoum. The fighting has spread to other parts of the country, especially urban areas and the vast western region of Darfur. According to the UN, more than 14,000 people have been killed and 33,000 injured.
The paramilitary forces, known as the RSF, have taken control of most of Darfur and are besieging the main city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the only capital they do not own.
Nkweta-Salami told a UN press conference that hostilities in El Fasher escalated over the weekend and clashes early this week left dozens of casualties and displaced many more of the 800,000 people still in the city.
She said there are only six weeks left before “the lean season” begins, when food becomes less available and more expensive. It also coincides with the rainy season, when reaching people is very difficult as roads become impassable with water, and the end of the planting season, when the UN has to deliver seeds to farmers, she said.
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan urged “more funding and quickly.”
On April 15, donors pledged $2.1 billion in humanitarian aid to Sudan, but Nkweta-Salami said the UN’s $2.7 billion humanitarian appeal – to help nearly 15 million of the country’s 58 million people – is only 12% financed.
“Without more resources, we will not be able to scale up in time to prevent famine and further hardship,” she warned.
Leni Kinzli, the regional spokesperson for the UN World Food Program, said on May 3 that at least 1.7 million people in Darfur experienced emergency levels of hunger in Sudan in December, and the number is now expected to be “much higher” .
“People are resorting to consuming grass and peanut shells,” Kinzli said. “And if aid does not reach them quickly, we risk witnessing widespread famine and death in Darfur and other conflict-affected areas in Sudan.”
Nkweta-Salami demanded unfettered access to the millions in need and urged increased aid deliveries from Chad, which borders Darfur, and across conflict lines.
She said food, water and medicine are desperately needed in El Fasher, which is now completely surrounded. As an example of the problems facing the UN and other aid agencies, she said a UN convoy carrying more than a dozen trucks carrying crucial supplies for 120,000 people left Port Sudan on April 3 but has still not reached El Fasher due to the insecurity and checkpoints. and delays in obtaining consent.
Nkweta-Salami urged parties involved in the fighting in and around El Fasher to step back to avoid what would be “a catastrophic impact on the civilian population”.
“And above all, we need more commitment to end this war” and to hold the parties to the conflict accountable, she said. “The international community cannot stand by and watch as this crisis spirals out of control – while the noose of this conflict tightens its stranglehold on the civilian population.”