Displaced people in Darfur fetch water in camps.
Two aid convoys carrying WFP life-saving supplies have arrived in Darfur, Sudan, for the first time in months, in an attempt to avert a "hunger catastrophe", the United Nations World Food Programme said today.
WFP convoys entered the Sudan from Chad in late March, carrying enough food and nutrition supplies to reach some 250,000 people in Darfur in the northern, western and central Darfur regions, who are facing severe hunger.
Constant supply is required
Despite these encouraging developments, a WFP spokesman warned that the hunger scourge in Sudan will only worsen unless the Sudanese people continue to receive assistance "across the front lines from neighbouring countries" through all possible humanitarian corridors.
Last month, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain warned that the war in Sudan could trigger the world's worst hunger crisis unless Sudan and families fleeing to South Sudan and Chad receive much-needed food aid. This will require unfettered access, faster customs clearances, and funding for humanitarian response plans to meet the enormous needs of civilians affected by devastating wars.
Humanitarian access is complicating
WFP's communications officer in Sudan, Leni Kinzli, said it was "extremely challenging" to ensure safe and sustained access to aid in Darfur. The situation is further complicated by the refusal of humanitarian access from Chad to Darfur by the leadership of the Sudanese Armed Forces stationed in Port Sudan.
Heavy fighting, a lack of security and protracted approval processes between the warring parties have led to delays in the distribution of aid to those in need, Mr. Jinzli said.
WFP and partners urgently need security and conflict avoidance so that supplies in Northern Darfur can be distributed to those who struggle to secure even one basic meal a day.
WFP reported on Friday that 37 trucks carrying 1,300 tonnes of supplies entered Western Darfur from Adre, Chad, last week. Food distribution is ongoing in Western and Central Darfur.
Last year, WFP provided food assistance to 1 million people in Western and Central Darfur through the Adre crossing in Chad.
The capital of Western Darfur is in crisis
It is not clear to WFP whether it will be able to continue and regularly use the cross-border route from Adre to Western Darfur, which is one of the most food-insecure areas in Sudan, Kinzli said.
The situation in El Geneina, the capital of Western Darfur, is particularly dire. Due to limited food distribution, it was reported that many desperate women stormed one of the distribution points.
In the last four to five years, Kinzli said, El Geneina has also been "the place where we see the highest levels of hunger during the lean season."
The war that broke out in Sudan last April pushed hunger to record levels, with 18 million people facing acute malnutrition. In Darfur, 1.7 million people are already in a hunger emergency, according to global food security experts.
Kindsli said the people of Western Darfur would find themselves in an even more difficult situation if they could not continue to use the specific corridor from Adre to Western Darfur and expand the scale of assistance. The conflict in the Sudan has created the world's fastest-growing displacement crisis.
