Time is running out to prevent starvation in Darfur, in western\u00a0Sudan, a UN agency has warned, as escalating violence devastates the African nation. <\/p>\n
People have been forced to consume \u201cgrass and peanut shells,\u201d the regional director for Eastern Africa of the World Food Programme\u00a0(WFP) said on Friday. \u201cIf assistance doesn\u2019t reach them soon, we risk witnessing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict-affected areas in\u00a0Sudan,\u201d Michael Dunford added. <\/p>\n
Sudan has been gripped by civil war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It quickly descended into a brutal conflict\u00a0characterized by reports\u00a0of sexual and genocidal violence and civilian casualties, triggering an exodus of refugees. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, two International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) drivers were killed by gunmen in\u00a0South Darfur, in an attack that\u00a0left three other staff members injured, according to\u00a0the humanitarian organization. <\/p>\n
The ICRC team was attacked en route to assess the crisis among communities affected by armed violence in the region,\u00a0the organization said. <\/p>\n
The latest surge in violence comes as the RSF encircles North Darfur\u2019s capital, El Fasher. <\/p>\n
In the city and its surrounding localities, there have been \u201cincreasing arbitrary killings,\u201d systematic \u201cburning of entire villages\u201d and \u201cescalating air bombardments,\u201d the UN deputy humanitarian coordinator for\u00a0Sudan,\u00a0Toby Hayward, said on Thursday. <\/p>\n
Hayward added that El Fasher is the only city in Darfur that has not been captured by the RSF and hosts thousands of people who have been displaced by the war. <\/strong>At least 500,000 of those sheltering in the city have been displaced from violence elsewhere in Sudan, according to the UN\u2019s children\u2019s agency (UNICEF). <\/p>\n More than 36,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in El Fasher in recent weeks, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported. <\/p>\n At least 43 people have been killed in and around the city since the escalation of fighting a little over two weeks ago, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said on Thursday. <\/p>\n \u201cRecent attacks on more than a dozen villages in western El Fasher have resulted in horrific reports of violence, including sexual violence, children injured and killed, homes set on fire, and destruction of critical civilian supplies and infrastructure,\u201d Russell detailed. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, deliveries of food assistance in Darfur \u201chave been intermittent due to fighting and endless bureaucratic hurdles\u201d and at least 1.7 million people within the region are experiencing emergency levels of hunger, according to the World Food Programme. <\/p>\n \u201cThe latest escalation of violence around El Fasher has halted aid convoys coming from Chad\u2019s Tine border crossing \u2013 a recently opened humanitarian corridor that passes through North Darfur\u2019s capital,\u201d the WFP added. Restrictions imposed by authorities in the coastal town of Port Sudan have hindered aid deliveries, the WFP said, preventing the transportation of relief via Adr\u00e9, a town in neighboring Chad. <\/p>\n More than 8.7 million people, including 4.6 million children, have been displaced by the war in Sudan and 24.8 million need assistance, according to OCHA. <\/p>\n\n Time is running out to prevent starvation in Darfur, in western\u00a0Sudan, a UN agency has warned, as escalating violence devastates the African nation. People have been forced to consume \u201cgrass and peanut shells,\u201d the regional director for Eastern Africa of the World Food Programme\u00a0(WFP) said on Friday. \u201cIf assistance doesn\u2019t reach them soon, we risk <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}