Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 28th April. UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Abdou Dieng on Thursday said that the UN has been forced to essentially halt all aid operations across Sudan due to the fighting between rival militaries, but humanitarians who have re-located to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast are determined to return to Khartoum “as quickly as possible”.
Mr. Abdou Dieng, was speaking from Port Sudan via video conference in New York told reporters that senior leadership would be returning to the Sudanese capital, as soon as the situation allows.
He noted that the needs are urgent, and widespread as the final few hours of a US-brokered 72-hour ceasefire neared, with fighting continuing.
Hundreds have been killed, and thousands wounded as the rival militia of the country’s top two generals continue to battle each other in civilian areas.
Mr. Dieng said that 1 in three Sudanese was in need of aid, and it’s proving “extremely difficult” to properly assess the level of need today.
He said that the pre-conflict Humanitarian Response Plan called for $1.7 billion, of which only 15 per cent has been pledged.
On inter-communal violence in West Darfur and food shortages, he said the UN was extremely worried about food supplies and the deteriorating situation across all of Darfur.
UN and partners are establishing a core team in Port Sudan itself, which will be responsible for overseeing humanitarian operations in the country, and negotiating humanitarian access with de facto authorities, he stateds.
Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, announced the allocation of $3 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to urgently respond to the arrival of Sudanese refugees and others in Chad.
WHO reported that over 60 per cent of health facilities are closed and only 16 per cent are operating as normal.
UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq, said that according to UN partners who remain in Khartoum the treatment of 50,000 acutely malnourished children has been disrupted.
Mr. Haq said that shortages of food, water, medicines and food continue, especially in the capital and surrounding areas, where the military stand-off has been most intense, “while access to communications and electricity is limited in many parts of the country.”
IOM said that 20,000 people –Chadians, Sudanese, and foreign nationals fleeing the violence in Sudan, have arrived in Chad.
The vast border between the two countries extends for 1,400 kilometres, he noted.
Anne Kathrin Schaefer, IOM Chief of Mission in Chad said “The majority of those arriving are in dire need of basic humanitarian aid, namely food, water and adequate shelter,”
“While registration is ongoing by humanitarian actors including IOM, we believe a considerable number of those arriving are Chadians as well as nationals from other countries, who lived in Sudan and will require immediate assistance to return to their communities of origin and reunite with their families,” she added.
IOM teams have been deployed in Eastern Chad at the border with Sudan and are working around the clock in support of the national and humanitarian efforts to respond to the arrivals, she concluded.
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