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STORY: WFP / SUDAN HUNGER CRISIS
TRT: 6:48
SOURCE: WFP
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WFP ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ARABIC / ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 20-26 JULY 2024, KHARTOUM AND PORT SUDAN, SUDAN
25 JULY 2024, ALJAILA
1.Tracking shot, burning Aljaili Oil Refinery
Khartoum is the frontline between the forces fighting in Sudan. The Alijaili Oil Refiner, just an hour north of the city has been the target of airstrikes during the conflict.
25 JULY 2024, OMDURMAN, KHARTOUM
2. Various shots, destruction in War Torn Neighborhood
3. Various shots, destroyed Omdurman Market
The iconic market in Omdurman has been reduced to rubble. It was Sudan’s most important market. Its loss is not only historical but has devastating effects on Sudan’s food supply chain and economy.
24 JULY 2024, OMDURMAN, KHARTOUM
4.SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Maya, resident who used to sell tea in a market:
“They were blocking the streets and beating people who tried to leave their homes. Often two or three days passed without us being able to go out and get food, sometimes even for a week we were trapped inside our homes. If we tried to leave, we would get beaten in the street and robbed of money and food.”
25 JULY 2024, OMDURMAN, KHARTOUM
5. Various shots, children being tested for malnutrition
6. Various shots, community kitchen
People in war torn area neighborhood receive lentil soup. For many it’s the only meal they will eat today. People are starting to return to their homes. Not because it’s safe to do so but because the alternative option of finding a safe place to survive is becoming increasingly more difficult and dangerous as fighting spreads throughout the country. In response to the ongoing hunger crisis in Sudan, community-led initiatives have emerged as a vital lifeline for vulnerable populations. One such initiative involves the establishment of community kitchens, run by neighborhood-based aid groups known as Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs). These kitchens provide hot meals to Sudanese people across the country, ensuring that those affected by the conflict have access to nutritious food. This has been especially important in Khartoum, where many people are trapped in areas affected by active conflict. Over 100.000 people are on the brink of famine, more than one million face emergency levels of hunger. WFP is now able to support these kitchens in the Khartoum area.
7.SOUNDBITE (English) Khalid Mohamed Elbaghir, community volunteer:
“They took everything from the houses, even the beds. People here they come back…they started coming back to their houses but unfortunately, they don’t have anything inside, and they even don’t have a job because of the war, so we started supplying them with the food.”
23 JULY 2024, SINKAT
8.Various shots, women walking through a dry riverbed in the desert
Sudan is now the largest displacement crises globally, hosting more than 10 million internally displaced people as of 6 June 2024 (this figure includes IDP populations before the crisis). Over 2 million people have also fled across borders since the conflict began mid-April 2023.
20 JULY 2024, PORT SUDAN
9.Various shots, newly arrived displaced people living in a schoolyard
Recent fighting in Al Qadarif has resulted in a new surge in displacement to the relative safety of Port Sudan. Many have been displaced several times.
10. Wide shot, Amna Yousif
Amna and her family fled Sennar in the middle of the night travelling for 8 days on foot and on a truck until they reached the Port Sudan where they are living in a tent in an abandoned lot.
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Amna Yousif:
“They killed many people and stole all of their belongings whether it be cars, food or anything. We got up at 2am on a rainy night carrying the children in our arms and took off on foot through the night in the mud until we reached a dry area where we found a truck to carry us out. When I left my house, I left the Okra at this height and the Molokhia (mallow) is ready for harvest, Graces are many is because one of the good things of our village is that when you sow with your hand you eat and drink.”
12. Various shots, newly arrived displaced people living in a schoolyard
26 JULY 2024, PORT SUDAN
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Eddie Rowe, WFP Sudan Country Director:
“Our biggest challenge is the continuation of the conflict which hampering our movement as well as our humanitarian supplies. So we call on the parties for an immediate cessation of hostilities that would allow humanitarians to access these communities some of whom are trapped and its very challenging to reach them at this time of the year when the roads are impassable.”
24 JULY 2024, OMDURMAN, KHARTOUM
14. Various shots, WFP Food Distribution
In this neighborhood in Khartoum area many of the most vulnerable elderly or impaired have been unable to escape the fighting and were often trapped in their homes for days at a time without food or medical care. For them, this two-month WFP ration of lentils, sorghum, oil and salt comes as a huge relief. Access in many areas throughout Sudan has been very challenging due to negotiations with the warring parties. WFP is rapidly scaling up its emergency response to avert famine in war-torn Sudan, more than doubling the number of people targeted for assistance this year. Humanitarian corridors have been closed due to fighting, restrictions by the authorities and now the rainy season is making many routes impassable. The needs in Sudan are enormous. To feed everyone who is hungry (IPC3+) would require hundreds of millions of dollars. Left without assistance, people will continue to slip into deeper and more lethal levels of hunger.
The Famine Review Committee (FRC) of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has concluded that famine conditions are prevalent in parts of North Darfur, including the Zamzam camp south of El Fasher.
The review of the recent IPC analyses was conducted by FEWS NET and the Sudan IPC Technical Working Group (TWG).
The escalating violence in Sudan, which has been persisting for over 15 months now, has severely impeded humanitarian access and pushed parts of North Darfur into Famine, notably Zamzam IDP camp, according to IPC.
Areas are classified in IPC Phase 5 (Famine) when at least one in five (or 20 percent) people or households have an extreme lack of food and face starvation and destitution, resulting in extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death.
The Zamzam Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp is located approximately 12 kilometres south of El Fasher town and represents one of the largest IDP camps in Sudan, with an estimated population of at least 500,000.
The scale of devastation brought by the escalating violence in El Fasher town is profound and harrowing. Persistent, intense, and widespread clashes have forced many residents to seek refuge in IDP camps, where they face a stark reality: basic services are scant or absent, compounding the hardship of displacement. Around 320,000 people are believed to have been displaced since mid-April in El Fasher. Around 150,000 to 200,000 of them are believed to have moved to Zamzam camp in search of security, basic services, and food since mid-May. The camp population has expanded to over half a million in a few weeks, IPC said.
Restrictions on humanitarian access, including intentional impediments imposed by the active parties to the conflict, have severely restricted the capability of aid organisations to scale up their response efforts effectively. These obstructions have critically hindered the delivery of necessary aid and exacerbated the food crisis, driving some households into Famine conditions. As with any Famine, there is a multi-sectoral collapse, and basic human needs for health services, water, food , nutrition, shelter, and protection are not being met.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is rapidly scaling up its emergency response to save more lives in war-torn Sudan. WFP is also increasing the amount of assistance, while identifying innovative and effective ways to deliver immediate assistance to millions of people across the country and in hard-to-reach areas.
WFP is increasing its assistance to reach as many people as possible affected by this crisis, prioritizing those in the most severe levels of food hunger (catastrophic/emergency or IPC4+), depending on access and funding. So far in 2024, WFP has supported more than 4 million IDPs, refugees and vulnerable communities across Sudan with food and cash assistance, including 1.7 million in June alone.
Much more needs to be done as fighting intensifies in El Fasher, Khartoum, and now in Sennar State. The humanitarian community is struggling to deliver much-needed assistance at scale, as humanitarian needs rise to extraordinary levels in the country. The rainy season is adding another layer of complexity to WFP’s operations as roads across the country (e.g. in Darfur and Kordofan regions) become flooded and impassable.
WFP is constantly adapting its operations to get food assistance to hard-to-reach areas, like the capital Khartoum. WFP is supporting community kitchens in certain areas of Khartoum through local partners, with a goal of distributing up to 100,000 hot meals every month. WFP is also expanding its cash-based assistance, including the roll out of a self-registration pilot for cash-based assistance for residents of Khartoum.
The fighting around Sinja, the capital of Sennar State, has sparked a wave of displacement towards Blue Nile and Gedaref States and cut off some key aid routes. WFP rapidly mobilized food assistance to newly displaced people from Sinja during its on-going distributions in Blue Nile.
As the war in Sudan rages on, more and more people are being pushed into catastrophic levels of hunger.
The needs in Sudan are enormous, but funding shortfalls mean that WFP can only assist people in catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC5), some people in IPC41, and refugees. This means that millions of others in IPC4 and IPC3 are left without life-saving assistance, which could drive them into deeper and more lethal levels of hunger.
WFP urgently required additional resources –including additional funding to more than double the number of people receiving emergency cash transfers (from 660,000 people to 1.5 million by October). In-kind food assistance takes longer to reach communities due to long transport routes, access impediments, and poor road conditions.
WFP will also increase the number of cooperating partners on the ground and leverage the capacity of NGOs who have experience in crossline operations.
WFP’s CALL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY:
The international community must urgently step-up diplomatic efforts for an immediate ceasefire to open humanitarian access, allow aid agencies to deliver at scale and prevent a widespread famine that could claim the lives of hundreds of thousands.
Lasting peace is the only sustainable solution to address the rapidly increasing levels of hunger, displacement, and destruction.
The war has destroyed critical infrastructure, including food factories, hospitals, banks, agricultural land, bridges, gas pipelines, and industries like gum Arabic.
Even if the war stops today, rebuilding Sudan will take decades.
CHALLENGES:
Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) must streamline bureaucratic procedures and clearances to expedite the movement of aid supplies - particularly for cross-border and cross-line deliveries.
The safety and efficiency of aid transport along supply routes must be improved. This requires stopping the ad hoc imposition of fees and taxes on humanitarian convoys, securing adequate security guarantees for all humanitarian convoys and staff missions, and preventing the looting of WFP food commodities by any armed actors.
Currently the only authorized cross-border route into Darfur is from Tine (in Chad) into North Darfur. However, the Tine crossing is now largely impassable for trucks because of seasonal flooding. This is shrinking the delivery of food supplies to a fraction of what is needed.
The Sudanese Government must re-open the border crossing from Adre (in Chad) into West Darfur for WFP and other aid agencies to efficiently deliver life-saving assistance across the war-ravaged Darfur region. The border crossing via Tine is longer and more costly.
The fighting in Sinja has disrupted the crossline supply corridor from Port Sudan to Kosti, impacting critical supply lines for supporting affected populations, including refugees in White Nile State.
Due to worsening security and access constraints, WFP convoys have faced delays, affecting timely food distributions in Darfur. Intensified fighting in El Fasher is making it impossible for convoys to move into North Darfur’s capital city, where over half a million people have been trapped for months and are currently at risk of famine.
