PARIS: The World Food Programme has announced the arrival of a rare convoy of humanitarian aid into civil war-torn Sudan via a temporarily reopened border crossing with Chad.
“More than a dozen aid trucks — including some from the WFP and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) — have now crossed into Darfur from Chad via the Adre border crossing” in Sudan’s west, UN chief Antonio Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric told journalists Wednesday.
The WFP trucks were carrying sorghum, legumes, oil and rice for around 13,000 people threatened with famine in the Kereinik region in western Darfur, Dujarric said.
Meanwhile the IOM brought “essential relief items” for around 12,000 people, the spokesman added.
Fighting broke out in April last year between Sudan’s army, led by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy Mohammed Hamdane Dagalo.
More than 25 million people have been pitched into acute hunger by the conflict, according to UN figures — over half of Sudan’s total population.
“The re-opening of the Adre crossing is critical for the effort to prevent famine from spreading across Sudan, and it must now stay in use,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain said in a statement Wednesday.
“I want to acknowledge all parties for taking this vital step to help WFP get lifesaving aid to millions of people in desperate need,” she added.
McCain said further border crossings should be reopened and humanitarian corridors created to enable more aid to be brought in, insisting that “this is the only way to avoid widespread starvation.”
Sudan’s government has said that the Adre crossing will remain open for the three coming months.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also hailed Thursday the opening of the border crossing as a “positive first step,” but also said it should be for longer.
“The three months coincide with the rainy season, which naturally complicates access because of heavy rains and flash floods,” the aid group said in a statement.
Rare food aid convoy enters Sudan from Chad
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Rare food aid convoy enters Sudan from Chad
- WFP trucks were carrying sorghum, legumes, oil and rice for around 13,000 people threatened with famine in the Kereinik region
Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon kills 13 people, Lebanese ministry says
- Hamas condemned the attack in a statement saying the strike hit a sports playground and denying that it was a training compound
- Lebanon’s Health Ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire
SIDON, Lebanon: An Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed 13 people and wounded several others, state media and government officials said. It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.
The drone strike hit a car in the parking lot of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the state-run National News Agency said. The Lebanese Health Ministry said 13 people were killed and several others wounded in the airstrike, without giving further details.
Hamas fighters in the area prevented journalists from reaching the scene, as ambulances rushed to evacuate the wounded and the dead.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an attack against Israel and its army. It added that the Israeli army would continue to act against Hamas wherever the group operates.
Hamas condemned the attack in a statement saying the strike hit a sports playground and denying that it was a training compound.
Over the past two years, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have killed scores of officials from the militant Hezbollah group as well as Palestinian factions such as Hamas.
Saleh Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s military wing, was killed in a drone strike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Jan. 2, 2024. Several other Hamas officials have been killed in strikes since then.
Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people. That sparked Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
A day after the Israel-Hamas war started, Hezbollah began firing rockets toward Israeli posts along the border. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September 2024.
That war, the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah over the past four decades, killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.
The war ended in late November 2024 with a US-brokered ceasefire. Since then, Israel has carried out scores of airstrikes in Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its capabilities.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire.
