The United Nations has commenced the distribution of food in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region for the first time in several months. This comes amid warnings of an impending famine due to a yearlong war and lack of access to food aid.
According to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), two aid convoys carrying food and nutrition assistance for approximately 250,000 people for a month crossed the border from Chad in late March.
Food distribution is currently underway in West and Central Darfur, as confirmed by the WFP’s Sudan spokeswoman, Leni Kinzli.
These deliveries mark the first WFP cross-border aid convoys to reach Darfur in western Sudan following lengthy negotiations to reopen humanitarian corridors from Chad after permission was revoked in February by authorities loyal to the Sudanese army.
With a rivalry between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamad Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, causing one of the world’s worst hunger crises, about a third of the population, or 18 million people, are facing acute hunger, according to UN aid agencies.
The world body warned in March that 222,000 children could die from malnutrition in the coming months unless their aid needs are urgently met.
Situation severe in Darfur
In Darfur, the situation has been particularly severe with brutal attacks by the RSF reviving fears of another genocide. In 2003, as many as 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes, many by government-backed Arab militias.
Despite Friday’s aid delivery, the WFP has been unable to schedule further convoys.
“We are extremely concerned that unless the people of Sudan receive a constant flow of aid via all possible humanitarian corridors - from neighboring countries and across battle lines – the country’s hunger catastrophe will only worsen,” Kinzli, speaking via a weblink from Nairobi, told a news briefing in Geneva.
Sudan’s cereal…
Original from www.aljazeera.com