CAIRO: Humanitarian workers in Sudan’s Darfur are being forced to “choose who to save” due to insufficient resources, aid group Handicap International’s logistics chief Jerome Bertrand told AFP.
After more than two years of war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, needs have reached overwhelming levels, Bertrand said.
“We are forced to choose who we save and who we don’t,” Bertrand said after returning from a three-week mission to assess aid logistics.
“It is an inhumane dilemma that humanitarian actors have to face and it goes completely against our values.”
Bertrand said teams were prioritising children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers “in the hope that others can hold on.”
The conflict in Sudan, which began in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 12 million, creating what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
Conditions in Darfur have deteriorated sharply since the RSF seized the North Darfur capital of El-Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in the region, on October 26.
The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) confirmed this month El-Fasher is facing famine, which has raged in its surrounding displacement camps for over a year.
Aid groups like Bertrand’s are scrambling to meet immense needs, with no functional infrastructure.
None of Darfur’s airports can receive aid, roads are often impassable and the only access point into the region — through neighboring Chad — is riddled with “administrative obstacles,” in addition to exorbitant costs and insufficient international funding.
- ‘Total collapse’ -
“It’s the entire supply of an area the size of France, with 11 million inhabitants, moving partly on the backs of donkeys,” he said, describing a “state of anarchy,” the total collapse of government structures, rampant banditry and security threats on the roads, including “extortion, theft, assaults and arrests.”
In Tawila — a refuge town now sheltering more than 650,000 people fleeing El-Fasher and the nearby Zamzam camp, both now under RSF control — Bertrand said he encountered people who “have absolutely nothing left,” while aid organizations are unable to meet demand.
He said the partial suspension of US aid had resulted in a loss of “70 percent of aid” to Darfur, leaving barely “a quarter of needs” covered.
Bertrand also described “80,000 people stranded” along Darfur’s roads, many of them subjected to violence, extortion or ransom demands.
Those who reach Tawila often show signs of malnutrition, injuries from torture and gunshot wounds, he said.
He said Darfur now reflects the reality of a country in a state of “decay,” accusing the international community of allowing armed groups to “kill each other.”
“In another era,” he said, “there would have been a United Nations resolution sending a peacekeeping force.”
Sudan aid workers forced to ‘choose who to save’ in Darfur: NGO
https://arab.news/mnw97
Sudan aid workers forced to ‘choose who to save’ in Darfur: NGO
- Bertrand said teams were prioritising children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers “in the hope that others can hold on”
Turkiye asks Britain’s MI6 to step up protection of Syria’s Sharaa, sources say
- A Turkish source said that MIT appealed to MI6 for more support after one such incident last month
- A senior Syrian security source said the request came after a “high-risk assassination plot”
ISTANBUL/DAMASCUS/LONDON: Turkiye’s intelligence agency asked its British counterpart MI6 last month to take a larger role in protecting Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa after recent assassination plots, according to five people familiar with the matter.
The request highlights efforts by foreign allies to shore up a country still shaken by sporadic violence 15 months after the overthrow of president Bashar Assad, with the US-Israeli war on Iran now rattling the wider region.
Those allies see Sharaa as crucial to preventing a relapse into sectarian fighting or civil war, after 14 years of civil conflict drove millions of refugees abroad and allowed Daesh to control swathes of Syria.
The militants last month stepped up attacks on military and security personnel across Syria and declared Sharaa, a former rebel, their “number one foe.”
It was unclear what specifically Turkiye’s National Intelligence Organization, or MIT, had asked of MI6, or what new role, if any, MI6 had taken up.
ANXIETY RISES IN SYRIA OVER DAESH
Turkiye, Britain and the US last year threw their backing behind Sharaa to try to reunite and rebuild his country of 26 million. London and Washington have scrapped most sanctions on Syria and on Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group he once led.
The sources who spoke to Reuters requested anonymity owing to the sensitivity of the matter.
MIT, the Turkish foreign ministry, Britain’s foreign office and Syria’s defense and interior ministries did not respond to requests for comment.
The sources, including Syrian and foreign officials, all cited rising anxiety over a series of reported Daesh plots to kill Sharaa.
A Turkish source said that MIT, which has played a key role in helping the new government to establish itself, appealed to MI6 for more support after one such incident last month. A senior Syrian security source said the request came after a “high-risk assassination plot”, adding that MIT, MI6 and Syrian authorities were constantly sharing intelligence.
Details of the plot were unclear. A separate Western intelligence source briefed on the matter believed Turkiye wanted to introduce a Western presence in Damascus to provide something of a buffer between the agencies of Turkiye and Israel, currently at loggerheads.
REPORTED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS AGAINST SHARAA Last year, Sharaa and two senior cabinet ministers were targeted by Daesh in five foiled assassination attempts, according to the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism. In November, Reuters reported that Syrian authorities had foiled two of the attempts.
Describing Sharaa as a “watchdog” of the global anti-Daesh coalition, the group mounted six attacks on Syrian authorities last month in what it called a “new phase.”
On Thursday, Damascus openly acknowledged for the first time that it coordinates with MIT, saying they had cooperated to foil an Daesh attack in the capital.
Turkish security sources said MIT had identified a team of three preparing remote bomb attacks, enabling Syrian counterparts to prevent an “imminent assault.”
A US diplomat briefed on the matter said MIT’s request to MI6 had been prompted by the Daesh resurgence.
The Western intelligence source said the two agencies could intensify joint planning and technical operations, but that no decision had been made on whether to send British personnel to Damascus. A Syrian security source said a physical British presence would be “highly risky.”
They said MI6 had been discussed at a meeting in Damascus on February 26 between a delegation headed by Britain’s special envoy for Syria, Ann Snow, and Syria’s deputy interior minister, Major General Abdulqader Tahan.
Sharaa was a commander of Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria before cutting ties with the group in 2016, then led a coalition of Islamist rebel factions in late 2024 to topple Assad.
