Edem Wosornu, director of operations and defenders of the humanitarian affairs office, OchhaInformed journalists of his recent visit to Sudan and Voisin Chad – a critical entry point for aid and a paradise for some 850,000 people who fled the fighting between the Sudanese army and the militia of the rapid support forces (RSF).
The war broke out in April 2023 and created one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, some 30 million people needing help.
Houses, hospitals and schools have been destroyed and the basic services have ceased. Malnutrition and food insecurity are increasing.
Help trucks waiting
Ms. Wosornu expressed her concerns about the situation in El Fasher, which has been as a seat for 500 days, with fresh bombardments reported that morning. The capital of Darfur du Nord is also in the grip of deadly cholera which “does not care if you are in uniform or civil”.
She said some 70 World Food Program trucks (Wfp), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), and the World Health Organization (WHO) wait in Nyala, in the south of Darfur, to enter the city.
Meanwhile, two other cities – Kadugli in the south of the state of Kordofan and El Obeid in the north of Kordofan – are also besieged.
“We have good news,” said Worsonu, announcing that UNICEF trucks have informed hundreds of thousands of people in Kadugli in recent days.
Khartoum now “a ghost city”
The high official of the OCHA recalled that Sudan was once the “Breadbasket” of the Horn of Africa, but last year of the famine conditions were reported in the Zamzam camp in the north of the Darfur.
The current skinny season has some 680,000 people nationally in a state of catastrophic food insecurity.
Although the fighting has headed in the capital, Khartoum, she said that the scale and destruction are devastating, with “streets and buildings strewn with explosive war”. The formerly dynamic city is now “completely a ghost city” with a “palpable feeling of trauma everywhere”.
However, she also witnessed signs of hope. She saw “a city trying to return to life, people who sweep the streets, a population determined to come back to what they were. But it will, of course, take many, a lot, many years. ”
In Chad, she thanked the authorities for their support, in particular by ensuring that the adre border with Sudan remains open.
War has made trips to Sudan extremely difficult, so humanitarian aid must pass from Douala to Cameroon through the capital of Chad, N’Djamena, and in several other cities before arriving at Adre to enter Darfur-“a gigantic effort,” she said.
More financing and access to access
Ms. Wosornu concluded by making four “key requests” to the international community, in particular for sustained improvements in access to aid and more funding.
“What we need is 55 cents per person per day. That’s it for Sudan, ”she said.
More difficult to deliver was his last call to the parties at war for lasting peace and the end of the fighting.
“Our humanitarian partners also say that this must stop so that we can continue to provide help,” she said. “Because after the war and everything stopped, and when weapons are silenced, people still need recovery.”
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
