Food aid scaled up in Sudan to prevent famine

Over 700 trucks are making their way to famine-stricken areas of Sudan after clearance came through from the military government, a World Food Programme spokesperson said on November 26th according to The Arab Weekly and agencies.

“In total, the trucks will carry about 17,500 tonnes of food assistance, enough to feed 1.5 million people for one month,” WFP Sudan spokeswoman Leni Kinzli told a press briefing in Geneva.

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“We’ve received around 700 clearances from the government in Sudan, from the Humanitarian Aid Commission, to start to move and transport assistance to some of these hard-to-reach areas.” She said that the start of the dry season was another factor enabling the scale-up.

She added that the WFP fleet will be clearly labelled in the hope that access will be facilitated. Some of the food is intended for 14 areas of the country either facing or at risk of facing famine, including the Zamzam camp in the Darfur region.

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Kinzli said the first food arrived there on November 22nd prompting cheers from locals who had resorted to eating crushed peanut shells normally fed to animals, and that second convoy for the camp is currently about 300km away.

Head of Sudan’s sovereign council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said on November 25th he would allow the airports in El Obeid, Kadugli and Damazine, army-controlled areas isolated by the fighting, to serve as humanitarian hubs for UN agencies to carry out deliveries.

The Arab Weekly