A UN organisation has warned that time is running out to prevent starvation in Darfur, in western Sudan, as increasing conflict ravages the African country.The World Food Program’s (WFP) regional head for Eastern Africa claimed on Friday that people had been made to eat “grass and peanut shells.” Michael Dunford continued, “We run the risk of seeing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict-affected areas of Sudan if assistance doesn’t reach them soon.”
Since April 2023, when violence broke out between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, the country has been engulfed in a civil war. It swiftly spiralled into a bloody war marked by allegations of genocidal and sexual violence against civilians, which led to a mass refugee flight. In the city and its surrounding localities, there have been “increasing arbitrary killings,” systematic “burning of entire villages” and “escalating air bombardments,” the UN deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Toby Hayward, said on Thursday.
Hayward added that El Fasher is the only city in Darfur that has not been captured by the RSF and hosts thousands of people who have been displaced by the war. At least 500,000 of those sheltering in the city have been displaced from violence elsewhere in Sudan, according to the UN’s children’s agency (UNICEF). More than 36,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in El Fasher in recent weeks, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.
At least 43 people have been killed in and around the city since the escalation of fighting a little over two weeks ago, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said on Thursday.The latest escalation of violence around El Fasher has halted aid convoys coming from Chad’s Tine border crossing – a recently opened humanitarian corridor that passes through North Darfur’s capital,” the WFP added. Restrictions imposed by authorities in the coastal town of Port Sudan have hindered aid deliveries, the WFP said, preventing the transportation of relief via Adré, a town in neighboring Chad.
More than 8.7 million people, including 4.6 million children, have been displaced by the war in Sudan and 24.8 million need assistance, according to OCHA.
Source: Here