Sudan: Minawi secures Darfur aid delivery agreement

Darfur Governor Minni Minawi said that an agreement was made with the United Nations (UN) and other humanitarian agencies in the region to facilitate the transport of humanitarian aid from Port Sudan to Darfur. Displaced camp residents in Central and South Darfur report a distressing rise in malnutrition-related fatalities among children and the elderly over the past week.

Yesterday, the governor of Darfur announced on X (formerly Twitter) an agreement with the UN to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid from Port Sudan, the capital of Red Sea state, to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, via El Debba road,after the Darfur Joint Forces stopped securing aid convoys between the two state capitals in late February.

In a briefing after the meeting, which was held at the Coral Hotel in Port Sudan, Minawi told reporters that humanitarian aid from neighbouring countries will be delivered via the Tine border crossing with Chad, adding he “will work to address the concerns of all governmental and international organisations to provide assistance to Sudanese in need”.

As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, Sudanese authorities had designated several border crossings for aid delivery to Darfur, including El Tina on the border with Chad, Renk in South Sudan, and airports in El Fasher, El Obeid, and Kadugli. Authorities refused to utilise the Adré crossing with Chad to transport aid, citing concerns over the alleged use of the crossing to smuggle weapons for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Sudanese Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Salma Adam announced this week that 60 aid trucks were nonetheless cleared to enter El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, through the Adré crossing. However, volunteer activists in West and Central Darfur voiced concerns over the difficulty of aid reaching Darfur via El Tina or El Fasher, pointing to restrictions on aid entry similar to those at the Adré-El Geneina crossing.

Famine threat

During the meeting, Minawi expressed grave concerns about the looming threat of famine in the region, “particularly as the summer season commences”.

Contrary to international assertions regarding the threat of famine in Sudan, the Sudanese Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner refuted such claims. “Sudan has not yet reached the famine stage”, Awad told attendees, instead attributing the current humanitarian challenges to “the ongoing warfare conditions”.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga from South Darfur’s Kalma camp, Ishag Mohamed, the camp’s leader, lamented the surge in deaths attributed to malnutrition among camp residents, “necessitating prolonged stays at the camp’s cemetery for burials”.

Mohamed highlighted the prevalence of diarrhoea among children and the acute shortage of food, urging the swift establishment of humanitarian corridors to provide relief to the displaced.

Also in South Darfur, Abdelrahman Abdallah, leader of displaced camps in Kass, reported alarming rates of malnutrition among the elderly and children. “We have currently recorded approximately 100 cases of child malnutrition”, he told Radio Dabanga, adding that “the nearest treatment centre, affiliated with CARE, is more than 10 kilometres away in the Kalokitting area of southern Jebel Marra”.

In Central Darfur, displaced residents of Tur camp voiced fears of an imminent famine if food aid fails to reach the camp. Nasreldin Abdelmanan, a representative of youth in the camp, pointed to the scarcity of job opportunities and the non-payment of workers’ salaries since the conflict’s onset, making it nearly impossible for residents to meet their daily needs.

He further underscored the alarming rise in prices, citing instances where “a bag of sugar soared to SDG120,000, a carton of soap reached SDG30,000, and a package of cooking oil spiked to SDG36,000”.