GENEVA, Nov 27 — More than 700 trucks are on their way to famine-stricken areas of Sudan as part of a major scale-up after clearance came through from the Sudan government, a World Food Programme spokesman said yesterday.
The army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in conflict since April 2023 that has caused acute hunger and disease across the country. Both sides are accused of impeding aid deliveries, the RSF by looting and the army by bureaucratic delays.
“In total, the trucks will carry about 17,500 tonnes of food assistance, enough to feed 1.5 million people for one month,” WFP Sudan spokesman Leni Kinzli told a press briefing in Geneva.
“We’ve received around 700 clearances from the government in Sudan, from the Humanitarian Aid Commission, to start to move and transport assistance to some of these hard-to-reach areas,” she added, saying the start of the dry season was another factor enabling the scale-up.
The WFP fleet will be clearly labelled in hopes access will be facilitated, she said.
Some of the food is intended for 14 areas of the country that face famine or are at risk of famine, including Zamzam camp in the Darfur region.
The first food arrived there on November 22, prompting cheers from crowds that have resorted to eating crushed peanut shells normally fed to animals, Kinzli said.
A second convoy for the camp is about 300km away, Kinzli said.
On Monday, Sudan sovereign council head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said he would allow the airports in El Obeid, Kadugli, and Damazine — army-controlled areas isolated by the fighting — to serve as humanitarian hubs for United Nations agencies to facilitate deliveries.
— Reuters
