CAIRO (Reuters) – The World Food Programme said on Friday it had negotiated the delivery of the first two convoys of food aid into Sudan’s Darfur region in months, amid warnings of impending famine caused by a one-year war and lack of access to food aid.
The war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has sparked widespread hunger in the country, after destroying infrastructure and markets and displacing more than eight million people.
Catastrophic hunger, the term used on the household level for famine conditions, is expected in Khartoum and West Darfur, which have seen the fiercest attacks, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), as well as in many other areas of Darfur that house millions of displaced people.
One convoy with 1,300 tonnes of supplies was able to arrive via the Adre border crossing with Chad into West and Central Darfur, two areas already seeing emergency levels of hunger after being overrun by the Rapid Support Forces.
The Sudanese army in February blocked deliveries through Adre after saying that the Rapid Support Forces had received support from the United Arab Emirates through Chad. UN experts have also reported such assistance.
WFP, a United Nations organisation, said it was not sure whether it would be able to negotiate use of the route again.
In early March, the army said it would allow deliveries by air as well as through the Tina border crossing into North Darfur, the only one of Darfur’s five states that has not fallen under RSF control. The second convoy used that route, WFP said, and together the convoys contained food for 250,000 people.
More than 18 million people facing acute hunger need assistance, the WFP says.
“I fear that we will see unprecedented levels of starvation and malnutrition sweep across Sudan this lean season,” said WFP Sudan Country Director, Eddie Rowe, said in Friday’s statement, referring to the upcoming planting months.
The previous cereal harvest is half of previous levels according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, while prices of some goods have doubled.
Many in Darfur, particularly in displacement camps, say they have not received any aid since before the war. The UN’s aid response for Sudan is only 5% funded.
(Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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