UN Deputy Secretary-General visits Sudan and Chad

The United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, along with the Secretary General’s Personal Envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, have arrived in Port Sudan at the start of a high-level delegation to the region. Tomorrow, they will travel to Adré in Chad, to asses the humanitarian situation of the 900,000+ Sudanese refugees in the country.

Mohammed and Lamamra are accompanied by an inter-agency delegation consisting of the Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, and senior officials from the World Food Programme (WFP), UN refugee agency (UNHCR), and UNICEF, arrived in Port Sudan today, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports.

Lamara and her delegation will meet with members of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, senior officials, and the UN country team, with a focus on strengthening humanitarian efforts in Sudan.

The UN official and her delegation will travel to Adré in Chad tomorrow, to draw attention to the multifaceted challenges affecting Chad, including the regional dimensions and key risks, and to appeal for global solidarity. Throughout the trip, the delegation will engage with local authorities, as well as representatives from refugee and host communities.

Chad is currently the country hosting the highest number of Sudanese refugees. According to figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) last week, an estimated 910,000 people have crossed into Chad since the onset of the crisis in Sudan, of which 213,339 are Chadian returnees as of end July 2023. IOM expects this number to rise to 240,000 through to December 2024.

Earlier this month, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, warned that “time is running out” as famine, disease and fighting close in on the population, with no end in sight.

Speaking to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York, she said: “The international community cannot stand by as this crisis spirals out of control, as the noose of this conflict tightens its stranglehold on the civilian population.”