Khartoum: Europe and the Arabs
The World Food Program said that for the first time in months it was able to deliver much-needed food and nutritional supplies to Darfur, but it warned that the “hunger catastrophe in the country” would worsen unless the Sudanese people received a continuous flow of aid through all possible humanitarian corridors. According to Aa The United States Daily News, a copy of which we received on Saturday
The program confirmed in a statement issued yesterday, Friday, that two convoys crossed the border from Chad into Darfur in late March, carrying aid for about 250,000 people. This was the first of two cross-border World Food Program aid convoys to reach Darfur, after authorities in Port Sudan canceled humanitarian corridor permits from Chad in February.
The temporary halt of the humanitarian corridor from Chad, as well as ongoing fighting, lengthy clearance processes for humanitarian shipments, bureaucratic hurdles, and security threats, “made it impossible for humanitarian workers to operate at the scale required to meet needs in the country,” the World Food Program said.
“We need aid to continually reach war-torn communities through all possible routes,” said Eddie Roy, WFP Representative and Country Director in Sudan. “Hunger will increase in Sudan as the lean season begins in a few weeks. I fear we will see unprecedented levels of "Famine and malnutrition are sweeping Sudan in this lean season."
Mr. Roy stressed that WFP and its partners urgently need security guarantees to distribute supplies in North Darfur to people “struggling to find even one basic meal a day.” Cross-border operations from Chad to Darfur are critical to reaching communities where children are already dying from malnutrition, he added: “All food transport corridors must remain open, especially the corridor from Adre in Chad to West Darfur where hunger levels are alarming.” To worry."
The war in Sudan is pushing hunger to record levels, with 18 million people across the country facing acute hunger. In Darfur, 1.7 million people face emergency levels of hunger.
Last month, World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain warned that the war in Sudan could lead to the world's worst hunger crisis unless families in Sudan and those who have fled to South Sudan and Chad receive food aid. This requires unrestricted access, faster clearance operations, and the resources needed to provide a humanitarian response that meets the enormous needs of civilians affected by the devastating war in Sudan, the program said.