Aid agencies are pleading with battling factions in Sudan to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the needy, after six trucks of humanitarian supplies were looted and airstrikes in Khartoum undermined a new ceasefire.
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said on Wednesday he was seeking assurances that would allow for movement of staff and supplies.
“We will need to have agreement at the highest level and very publicly and we will need to deliver those commitments into local arrangements that can be depended on,” Griffiths told reporters in Port Sudan, the eastern coastal city which has become a base for many aid agencies after nearly three weeks of fighting.
There appears little prospect of any real calm in Sudan in the near future. Fierce street fighting, including the use of heavy weaponry and artillery fire, have continued in central Khartoum despite a series of supposed ceasefires, and there have been intense clashes in the restive south-western region of Darfur.
A notable casualty on Wednesday was one of Sudan’s most famous actors. Asia Abdelmajid was in her 70s and the widow of Sudan’s acclaimed poet Mohamed Moftah al-Faitory. A former teacher, she was killed by a stray bullet in her house in Khartoum North.
The Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group loyal to Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, have blamed the Sudanese armed forces for violating the current ceasefire with strikes on factories and medical facilities.
The SAF, led by the country’s de facto leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, reject the charge, accusing the RSF infiltrating the homes of soldiers and detaining their families.
Both factions have said they are open to sending negotiators for talks in Saudi Arabia, with discussions limited initially to how to enforce a ceasefire amid fighting that has left more than 500 people dead. The true number of casualties is unknown as most hospitals are unable to function fully; a medical union described piles of bodies left in the streets as fighting continued around them.
The envoy of Burhan said on Wednesday that the army “accepted the Saudi-US initiative for truce talks, not mediation to end the fighting”. Dafallah Alhaj told reporters in Cairo that their delegation “will not meet with RSF face to face”.
The continued violence has led to an exodus of international humanitarian workers and the suspension of most aid programmes. It has also blocked new aid deliveries in a nation where about one-third of the 45 million population already relied on humanitarian assistance. Main international airports remain shut.
Callout
A broader disaster could be in the making as Sudan’s impoverished neighbours grapple with the influx of refugees.
About 100,000 people have been forced to flee with little food or water to neighbouring countries, while in Sudan the price of basic commodities – such as bottled water, food staples, and fuel – has doubled or even tripled in some places.
Griffiths said he had been told by the World Food Programme that six of their trucks travelling to Darfur were looted en route despite assurances of safety and security. There was no immediate comment from WFP.
“It’s a volatile environment, so we need those commitments,” Griffiths said. “It’s not as if we’re asking for the moon. We’re asking for the movement of humanitarian supplies, of people. We do this in every other country, even without ceasefires. It’s a traditional humanitarian enterprise to go where others don’t.”
Leni Christine Kinzli, a WFP communications officer, told the Guardian that one of the biggest current challenges for the agency was that its food stores in Sudan had been looted.
In the city of Geneina about 6,800 tonnes of food assistance was stolen and overall the agency estimated its losses at $400m worth of humanitarian assets, including equipment.
“We do still have food stocks positioned across the country – around 8,000 metric tonnes – which we are hoping to move to locations to where people are being displaced and where there are already existing refugees or IDP camps,” said Kinzli.
“We are focusing on resuming food distributions in al-Gazira, Kassala, the White Nile states … Food distributions have started today and we are doing our best to get assistance to the people that need the most.”
Other agencies are also struggling. The ICRC said its first airlift of vital medical supplies landed in Port Sudan on Sunday but has warned of difficulties in transporting aid to hospitals on the frontlines in the capital.
The 8 tonnes of humanitarian cargo includes surgical material to support Sudanese hospitals and volunteers from the Sudan Red Crescent Society (SRCS) who are providing medical care to people wounded in the fighting.
ICRC officials said on Wednesday that they had “high hopes” of getting the cargo to those who needed it most.
However, security concerns for humanitarian workers remain acute with some describing staff facing “enormous personal risks”.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) described a “hell on earth” in Geneina, Darfur, where fighting has resulted in the loss of at least 191 lives. The casualties included a community volunteers with the organisation. The NRC office and guesthouse were also been looted.
“The killing of scores of civilians and the complete disrespect for civilian infrastructure is unacceptable. The stories coming out of there describe a hell on earth where displaced families see their precarious shelters turned to ashes, humanitarian offices looted, warehouses pillaged, and nothing is left,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the NRC.
Evacuation operations by western and other nations are now winding down.
The final UK rescue flight from Sudan arrived in the UK on Wednesday afternoon. More than 2,400 people have been evacuated on 29 flights, according to UK officials, who described its evacuations as “the longest and largest operation of any western nation”.
