After a month of war, more than one in two Sudanese need humanitarian aid

More than one in two Sudanese are in need of humanitarian aid, the United Nations said on Wednesday, after more than a month of war between the army and paramilitary forces failed to end international diplomatic efforts.

On Wednesday, fighting again rocked homes in several districts of the capital, Khartoum, with deserted streets, thick black smoke rising from them.

After a month of fighting that has killed nearly a thousand people, left nearly 750,000 displaced and 220,000 refugees, the United Nations has revised upwards its appeals, indicating the need for $2.6 billion in aid to Sudan .

Along with this, an amount of about half a billion dollars has been given to help the refugees who have fled to the neighboring countries.

The United Nations has predicted that this year the total number of these refugees will exceed one million.

– “Anything” –

Before fighting broke out on April 15 between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane’s army and the paramilitary forces of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagallo’s Rapid Support Forces (FSR), one in three people in the country of 45 million suffered from hunger. Was. Resident.

Today, food is becoming increasingly scarce. In Khartoum, a city of five million people, those who did not flee are holed up in their homes, forced to ration and run out of money as banks close.

The agri-food industry, already on its knees after a 20-year ban under the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, which ended in 2019, is bombarding homes, hospitals and institutions in Khartoum and other cities.

The Sawmill factory, which produced “60% of nutritional treatments for children with severe nutritional deficiencies”, according to UNICEF, went up in flames.

Humanitarian aid has been looted. Doctors Without Borders announced that “armed men entered (its) warehouse in Khartoum on Tuesday” to rob “at least two vehicles full of supplies”.

Despite chaos in Khartoum and particularly in the Darfur region bordering Chad, where tribal fighters and armed civilians are involved in the fighting, talks for a humanitarian ceasefire are going nowhere.

Kenyan President William Ruto said, “We have to tell these generals to stop this nonsense.”

On Wednesday, the official Sudanese agency aired for the first time a video of General Burhane among jubilant soldiers in front of a burnt-out building of the army headquarters in Khartoum.

Gathered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, representatives of the belligerents are expected to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians and help without further progress.

– “How to force them?” ,

Nevertheless, Michael Dunford, regional director of the World Food Program (WFP), urged, “It is critical that humanitarian workers have access, resources and security guarantees to effectively support the people who depend on them for survival.” Is”.

Also in Jeddah, where an Arab League summit is being held on Friday, the heads of Egyptian and Saudi diplomacy, as well as the head of the Arab League, said they were in favor of a ceasefire but offered to outline terms. Without.

Arab countries remain deeply divided over Sudan: Egypt aligns with General Burhan, the United Arab Emirates with General Daglo and Riyadh maintains ties to both camps.

Yet diplomatic efforts are mounting as neighboring countries fear contagion. But, the Rift Valley Institute warned, “it is difficult to imagine how the two generals could be coerced to stop the violence”.

A report by the research center said the two, who became rivals after leading the October 2021 coup together, “see the other’s existence as a threat”.

“If the conflict continues, there will be a greater risk that external actors will become involved”, says the Rift Valley Institute, while already, Sudan and its gold mines have become a coveted location for mercenaries and foreign fighters. Are.