In a call for greater global solidarity with the people of Sudan, the World Food Programme (World Food Programme) said about 800,000 people had fled to Ondo in neighbouring Chad after suffering “unimaginable violence”.
WFP communications officer Leni Kinzli told journalists in Geneva that people fleeing famine-prone areas said they left “because there was nothing left to eat and all their crops had been destroyed by the floods”.
Too dangerous to farm
Others said “they cannot even farm because it is too unsafe to go to the fields” due to fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces that broke out on April 15 last year.
“We are doing everything we can, but we cannot stop widespread hunger and famine-related deaths without the support and attention of the international community,” Kinzli said. “World leaders need to give this humanitarian disaster the attention it deserves, and that attention needs to be translated into coordinated diplomatic efforts at the highest levels to promote a humanitarian ceasefire and ultimately an end to the conflict.”
Granted access to aid
Since the Adre border crossing from Chad into Sudan reopened a month ago, WFP has transported 2,800 tonnes of food and nutrition supplies into the Darfur region – enough aid for a quarter of a million people. Of those, 100,000 are at risk of starvation, the UN agency said, warning that the war has pushed some 36 million people into poverty in Sudan and the surrounding region.
“Trucks carrying essential food and nutrition are crossing that border every day, despite facing delays due to seasonal river flooding and muddy roads that have stuck aid convoys,” said Ms. Kinzli.
Although Chad is not at war, the needs there are also dire, the WFP official explained: “People are just experiencing hunger and destitution” when they cross the border from Sudan, she said. “Despite receiving food assistance, Many people are struggling to survive, eating only once a day if they are lucky. Like a teenage girl I met… who had lost her parents and was taking care of her younger siblings. Sometimes she could only give them water instead of food. If that’s the situation for people in a relatively safe and stable place, it’s hard to imagine what people facing famine or at risk of famine in Sudan are going through.”
