Aid Trucks Enter Civil War-Torn Darfur as Sudan Army Eases Restrictions

The World Food Programme (WFP) says a convoy of humanitarian aid has entered the Sudanese region of Darfur, offering temporary respite after Sudan’s forces sealed sections of the border with Chad to aid deliveries in February.

The United Nations agency on Wednesday said that more than a dozen trucks delivered food assistance for about 13,000 people threatened with famine in western Darfur’s Kereinik region. The agency added that it had food ready to move for 500,000 people. More than six million people face food insecurity across Darfur, as do more than 25 million, or about half the population, across the country.

“More than a dozen aid trucks – including some from the WFP and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – have now crossed into Darfur from Chad via the Adre border crossing,” UN chief Antonio Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday. The trickle of aid represents just a small portion of the assistance that is available but unable to enter amid restrictions by the Sudanese army, which has maintained that its rivals in a 16-month-long war use the route for transporting arms.

Fighting broke out in April last year between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Last week, the army announced it would temporarily reopen the crossing for a period of three months to allow vital assistance into Darfur, where more than six million people face food insecurity and the UN has detected famine.

Justin Brady, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, said in a social media post earlier this week that while 131 aid trucks had been approved for entry into Sudan, just 15 were allowed in before Sudanese authorities halted the move. “The Adre crossing from Chad into Sudan is the most effective and shortest route to deliver humanitarian assistance – particularly into the Darfur region – at the scale and speed required to prevent widespread starvation,” the WFP said in a social media post on Thursday.

The RSF, locked in a fierce struggle with the Sudanese army that has pushed the country towards mass hunger, welcomed the deliveries in a statement on Wednesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday hailed the opening of the border crossing as a “positive first step”, but also said it should be for longer.

“The three months coincide with the rainy season, which naturally complicates access because of heavy rains and flash floods,” the aid group said in a statement.

Source: Aljazeera