Famine-hit Sudan camp gets first aid convoy in months

A famine-stricken camp housing about 500,000 displaced people in Sudan has received its first convoy of aid in months.

The United Nations’ trucks arrived in Zamzam – which houses masses forced to flee during Sudan’s 18-month civil war – on Friday.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said food deliveries had been held up for months by fierce fighting in the nearby Darfur city of el-Fasher, as well as the “impassable” roads brought on by the rainy season.

The war – a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, forcing 10 million people from their homes and pushing communities into hunger.

The population of Zamzam has reportedly ballooned since April, when the RSF began battling to take el-Fasher from the army. El-Fasher is the only city still under military control in the western region of Darfur.

In August, an independent group of food security experts determined that the war had pushed Zamzam into famine.

The conditions for classifying an area to be in famine are that at least 20% of households must be facing an extreme lack of food, with 30% of children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or from malnutrition and disease.

The food convoy to Zamzam is part of a major surge in the WFP’s efforts to reach those in the “most needy and isolated conflict areas”, the organisation said.

Three convoys in total with more than 700 trucks have been dispatched with enough to feed 1.5 million people for over a month, the statement said.

Some of them food aid is also heading to South Kordofan state.

“These trucks carry more than just food; they carry a lifeline for people caught in the crossfire of conflict and hunger.

“We need guaranteed safe passage for our trucks and sustained international support to reach every family at risk,” Laurent Bukera, the WFP’s regional director for eastern Africa, said.

The warring sides have both been accused of blocking and looting aid, but both deny the allegations.

The convoy that arrived in Zamzam camp on Friday had left Adré on the border with Chad on 9 November – a key route for bringing aid into Darfur.

This corridor had been closed by an order from the army-controlled government in February and re-opened for three months in August.

Members of the government had protested against the opening, arguing that it allows for the RSF to deliver weapons, the Reuters news agency reported.

Last week, the government agreed to keep it open for another three months.

A second convoy of WFP aid left the army stronghold of Port Sudan, Sudan’s only port, 10 days ago and it is also heading to Zamzamp camp in the west.

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