UN presents financial requirements for aid in Sudan
Published: Wednesday, Feb 7th 2024, 05:30
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In Sudan, government troops and the RSF militia have been fighting for power in the north-east African country since April last year. The conflict has now forced almost eight million people to flee their homes - according to the United Nations, this is now the largest refugee movement in the world. This Wednesday in Geneva, the UN will now present its aid plans for the conflict and the financial requirements.
Last year, the plans coordinated by the UN amounted to 2.6 billion dollars. However, only around 43 percent of this was raised. According to the UN emergency aid office OCHA, 25 million people in Sudan - more than half the population - are dependent on humanitarian aid and protection. This includes 14 million children and young people. Countless of them are already acutely malnourished.
The predominantly poor neighboring countries, which have taken in more than 1.5 million refugees, also need support. The UN organizations and their partners want to reach almost 15 million people in the country itself. The UN refugee agency UNHCR wants to support a total of 2.7 million people in the neighboring countries of the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
High mortality rate in refugee camp in Darfur
The situation is particularly dramatic in the Darfur region: the aid organization "Doctors Without Borders" reported a catastrophic situation in the Samsam refugee camp in North Darfur, for example. The emergency threshold for malnutrition has been reached and the mortality rate is very high, the organization recently warned.
Acute malnutrition was diagnosed in almost a quarter of the children examined, and the proportion of infants was as high as 40 percent. "We estimate that at least one child dies every two hours in the camp; our current estimate is 13 children a day," said Claire Nicolet, head of emergency aid for Médecins Sans Frontières in Sudan.
Fighting makes help more difficult
Aid organizations and the World Food Programme (WFP) complain about the sometimes impossible access to people in need. Due to the security situation, WFP food transports to Darfur, for example, can only be carried out via the neighboring country of Chad and only reach a limited part of the vast region due to a lack of fuel.
WFP Country Director Eddie Rowe estimates that only a tenth of the people most affected by hunger receive regular aid. "Life-saving aid is not reaching those who need it most and we are receiving reports of people dying of hunger," Rowe warned a few days ago.
To make matters worse, there is now also the threat of a plague of locusts. The UN agricultural organization FAO reported that not enough has been done to contain the plague due to the fighting. Rainfall in winter has encouraged breeding. In addition, locust swarms from neighboring countries were now also threatening harvests and growing areas. The FAO has helped to contain the locusts on 23,000 hectares of land, but that is not enough. "The situation is critical," said Adam Yao from the FAO team in Port Sudan.
©Keystone/SDA
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