The funding gap for aid agencies is accentuating Sudan’s crisis, leaving them unable to help many of the tens of thousands of people fleeing from the Darfur city of al-Fashir and other areas, UN migration chief Amy Pope said.
The war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began in April 2023, has created what the UN has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis at a time when global aid budgets are shrinking.
About 12.5 million-Sudanese were displaced within and outside the country as of mid-October, with an additional 140,000 since fleeing RSF attacks on al-Fashir and towns in the Kordofan region.
FUNDING SHARPLY DOWN
The International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) $229m (R3.8bn) appeal for Sudan for this year is less than 10% funded, according to UN data. That is down from 44% of $212m (R3.6bn) last year, before cuts to foreign aid by US President Donald Trump’s administration and other donors.
“We’ve shipped out our last 35 tents from a warehouse. We have another 2,000 in customs, but if you think about the scale of the need it’s nowhere close,” IOM head Pope told Reuters in an interview by video link from Sudan.
In the town of Tawila an assessment before the latest influx of people found only 10% of people in camps there had reliable access to water and fewer had access to latrines.
Nearly 100,000 people are known to have left famine-stricken al-Fashir since the RSF overran it, with many more unaccounted for. IOM data shows most have fled to areas around al-Fashir, inaccessible to aid agencies, in part due to safety concerns.
“The first response is simply insufficient to meet needs, and when people do not get their most basic needs met the needs become compounded,” Pope said.
This fuels repeated displacements, including westward to impoverished Chad, and to other countries including Libya, a common departure point for risky boat journeys across the Mediterranean, Pope said.
The IOM said on Wednesday that about 29 Sudanese people were presumed dead after the rubber boat they were in capsized off the Libyan coast.
REPRISALS AGAINST PEOPLE TRYING TO FLEE
People who made it out of al-Fashir after it fell to the RSF after a long siege continue to give accounts of reprisals against those trying to leave.
The RSF said it is providing assistance to displaced people and taking care of those inside al-Fashir.
Mohieldin Bakheet, who lost two children when a drone targeted their shelter inside the city, said RSF fighters intercepted his group as they left the city.
The RSF started a livestream on their phones, he said, speaking from the army-controlled town of al-Dabba.
“At first it was great talk about helping us. Then one of the armoured vehicles came and ran people over without warning.”
At least 30 were killed in the incident, Bakheet said.
Reuters could not independently verify his account. Reached for comment, an RSF official said it is investigating such claims but there was an organised media campaign against the force.
“I’m burning inside,” Bakheet said about losing his wife, children, and sisters to the war.
Reuters
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