CAIRO: The US announced more than $47 million in humanitarian aid for war-torn Sudan and two neighboring countries, to where at least a million people have fled in the nearly 1-year-old conflict.
The aid package is expected to help alleviate the suffering of nearly 25 million people, including refugees who have fled the country into Chad and South Sudan, according to a statement Wednesday from the US State Department.
“This US humanitarian assistance provides critical life-saving assistance including food, water and sanitation facilities, shelter, medical services including mental health support, and protection to Sudanese fleeing the conflict,” it said.
The fresh funds bring to more than $968 million the total US humanitarian aid for Sudan since last year, the statement said.
Sudan plunged into chaos last April, when long-simmering tensions between its military led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo broke out into street battles in the capital, Khartoum. Thousands have been killed.
More than 9 million people are thought to be internally displaced in Sudan, and 1.5 million refugees have fled into neighboring countries.
The US relief funds were announced by Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration Julieta Valls Noyes during a meeting in N’Djamena with Chadian Prime Minister Succès Masra, whose country will receive $18 million of the entire package, according to a statement posted by the US Population, Refugees and Migration Bureau on the social platform X, formerly known as twitter.
Chad alone has received nearly 700,000 people from Sudan since the conflict erupted, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The US seized the opportunity to renew its calls on warring parties to end hostilities. “Preventing a famine and long-term catastrophe will require both a ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access,” the statement said.
The US announcement came the same day the UN director of humanitarian operations, Edem Wosornu, told the Security Council that Sudan might become the world’s worst hunger crisis with 18 million people already facing acute food insecurity. She stressed the need for humanitarian aid complaining that the UN appeal for $2.7 billion for Sudan was less than 5 percent funded — receiving just $131 million.
US announces over $47 million in humanitarian aid for war-torn Sudan
https://arab.news/j3kgp
US announces over $47 million in humanitarian aid for war-torn Sudan
- Fresh funds bring to more than $968 million the total US humanitarian aid for Sudan since last year
UN rights chief shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
