Sudan aid obstacles impact lifesaving relief effort

In an alert, WFP expressed deep concern about “the escalation of fighting” in Sudan’s Sennar State. More than 136,000 people have already fled their homes, many for the second or third time since the conflict started.

To date, the UN agency has provided support to 46,000 people who fled to neighbouring Blue Nile state and to another 3,000 who’ve sought refuge in adjoining Gedaref state.

In an update, the WFP said that the violence had “severely affected” operations across the region, including White Nile, Blue Nile, Kassala and Gedaref states.

‘Completely cut off’

“Fighting in Sennar cut off key supply routes for food and fuel into the state, leaving residents unable to access basic needs,” WFP explained, adding that its logistics hub in Kosti in White Nile state “is completely cut off” from Port Sudan on the coast, after rival paramilitary force the RSF moved in on 29 June.

“The route from Port Sudan to Kosti (that) cuts through Sennar is currently inaccessible,” WFP continued, describing the route as “a lifeline to get assistance to hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan, including many communities at risk of famine in the Kordofans and the Darfur region”.

Staying with the west of Sudan, the UN food agency also reported that getting assistance into Darfur from neighbouring Chad has “halted”, too.

“The Adre crossing from Chad is still closed and the Chad to Darfur crossing via Tine is inaccessible due to heavy rains and flooding brought by the rainy season.

The last WFP aid delivery via Tine was in mid-July, the UN agency said. “This leaves many areas cut off from assistance,” it continued, in an appeal for all humanitarian corridors to be open so that aid teams “can reach all those in need”.

Support for millions displaced

So far this year, WFP has supported more than four million internally displaced people, refugees and vulnerable host communities across Sudan, including 1.4 million in June alone. But the needs are far greater, it warned.

“Sudan is the world's largest hunger crisis. We need to be delivering food also on this scale.”

Talks end, call for ‘tangible progress on the ground’

In a related development in Geneva, UN-led talks between Sudan’s warring parties concluded on Friday. Leading the negotiations with representatives from the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, Ramtane Lamamra, held around 20 meetings in total with the delegations.

He said in a statement that he now counted on the parties “to promptly translate their willingness to engage with him into tangible progress on the ground” in Sudan, where around 10 million people have been uprooted by 15 months of war and humanitarians have warned that famine, disease and fighting are closing in on the population.