UN demands unimpeded aid access to Sudan

GENEVA: The United Nations (UN) called on Friday for Sudan’s warring factions to provide unimpeded access to deliver desperately-needed aid as the spectre of famine loom ater nearly a year of conflict.

The war between army chief Abdel Fatah Al Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has since April last year killed tens of thousands, destroyed infrastructure and crippled the economy.

It has also led to a dire humanitarian crisis and acute food shortages, with the country teetering on the brink of famine.

Jill Lawler, the emergency chief in Sudan for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said on Friday that there were enough aid stocks in Port Sudan, but the problem was geting the aid from there to the people in need.

“Humanitarian access, geting the unimpeded access to these populations, is really critical ,” she told reporters in Geneva via video link from New York.

Lawler said that she last week had led the first UN mission to reach Khartoum state since war erupted 11 months ago.

They had seen first-hand that “the scale and magnitude of needs for children across the country are simply staggering,” she said.

Law le run der scored the need for“rapid sustained, unimpeded humanitarian access, both across conflict lines within Sudan and across borders with Sudan’s neighbouring countries.”

The war “is pushing the country towards a famine” with hunger “the number one concern people expressed.”

“Unless there is sufficient political will, atention and resources put towards the response now, we are looking at a potential catastrophic loss of lives.”

The UN’S World Food Programme has warned that the war risks “triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis.”

Now, “millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake,” WFP executive director Cindy Mccain said.

“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest hunger crisis and the world rallied to respond,” she said, referring to the vast western region of Sudan. “But today, the people of Sudan have been forgoten.”

The UN on Friday called for more financial support for aid operations in Sudan.

UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told reporters in Geneva that the world body had appealed for $2.7 billion to provide aid this year, but had received just five percent of that amount so far.

In crowded transit camps in South Sudan, where 600,000 people from Sudan have fled, “families arrive hungry and are met with more hunger,” the UN food agency said. One in five children crossing the border was malnourished, it added.