Senior UN Officials: Fighting has Plunged Sudan into Humanitarian Catastrophe

FILE - People board a truck as they leave Khartoum, Sudan, on June 19, 2023. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - People board a truck as they leave Khartoum, Sudan, on June 19, 2023. (AP Photo, File)
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Senior UN Officials: Fighting has Plunged Sudan into Humanitarian Catastrophe

FILE - People board a truck as they leave Khartoum, Sudan, on June 19, 2023. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - People board a truck as they leave Khartoum, Sudan, on June 19, 2023. (AP Photo, File)

The conflict in Sudan has left 24 million people — half the country’s population — in need of food and other assistance, but only 2.5 million have received aid because of vicious fighting and a lack of funding, two senior UN officials said Friday.

Eden Worsornu, director of operations for the UN humanitarian agency, and Ted Chaiban, deputy executive director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, who just returned from Sudan, painted a dire picture of devastation and upheaval in Sudan, with no peace talks in sight, The Associated Press reported.

Worsornu said hotspots, such as the capital of Khartoum and the southern Kordofan and western Darfur regions, "have been shattered by relentless violence.” Nearly 4 million people have fled the fighting, facing scorching heat up to 48 degrees Celsius, and threats of attacks, sexual violence and death, she said.

The now nearly four-month conflict has killed more than 3,000 people and wounded over 6,000 others, according to the last government figures, released in June. But the true tally is likely much higher, doctors and activists say.

“Before the war erupted on the 15th of April, Sudan was already grappling with a humanitarian crisis,” Chaiban said. “Now, more than 110 days of brutal fighting have turned the crisis into a catastrophe, threatening the lives and futures of a generation of children and young people who make up over 70% of the population.”

The fighting pits forces loyal to top army Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan against his rival, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces.

Worsornu and Chaiban, who previously worked in Sudan, said ethnic violence has returned to Darfur, where attacks two decades ago by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias on people of Central or East African ethnicities became synonymous with genocide and war crimes.

Now “it is worse than it was in 2004," Worsornu said.

The statistics are grim: 24 million people need food and other humanitarian aid, including 14 million children, a number equivalent to every single child in Colombia, France, Germany and Thailand, Chaiban said.

The UN has been trying to get aid to 18 million Sudanese, but 93 of its humanitarian partners were able to reach only 2.5 million between April and June because of the severe fighting and difficulties getting to those in need.



Netanyahu Denounces Tactical Pauses in Gaza Fighting to Get in Aid

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)
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Netanyahu Denounces Tactical Pauses in Gaza Fighting to Get in Aid

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized plans announced by the military on Sunday to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate aid delivery into the Palestinian enclave.

The military had announced the daily pauses from 0500 GMT until 1600 GMT in the area from the Kerem Shalom Crossing to the Salah al-Din Road and then northwards.

"When the prime minister heard the reports of an 11-hour humanitarian pause in the morning, he turned to his military secretary and made it clear that this was unacceptable to him," an Israeli official said.

The military clarified that normal operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its operation in southern Gaza, where eight soldiers were killed on Saturday.

The reaction from Netanyahu underlined political tensions over the issue of aid coming into Gaza, where international organizations have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads one of the nationalist religious parties in Netanyahu's ruling coalition, denounced the idea of a tactical pause, saying whoever decided it was a "fool" who should lose their job.

DIVISIONS BETWEEN COALITION, ARMY

The spat was the latest in a series of clashes between members of the coalition and the military over the conduct of the war, now in its ninth month.

It came a week after centrist former general Benny Gantz quit the government, accusing Netanyahu of having no effective strategy in Gaza.

The divisions were laid bare last week in a parliamentary vote on a law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voting against it in defiance of party orders, saying it was insufficient for the needs of the military.

Religious parties in the coalition have strongly opposed conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, drawing widespread anger from many Israelis, which has deepened as the war has gone on.

Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, the head of the military, said on Sunday there was a "definite need" to recruit more soldiers from the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community.

RESERVISTS UNDER STRAIN

Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting still appears distant, more than eight months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters on Israel triggered a ground assault on the enclave by Israeli forces.

Since the attack, which killed some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners in Israeli communities, Israel's military campaign has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and destroyed much of Gaza.

Although opinion polls suggest most Israelis support the government's aim of destroying Hamas, there have been widespread protests attacking the government for not doing more to bring home around 120 hostages who are still in Gaza after being taken hostage on Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said seven Palestinians were killed in two air strikes on two houses in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

As fighting in Gaza has continued, a lower level conflict across the Israel-Lebanon border is now threatening to spiral into a wider war as near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have escalated.

In a further sign that fighting in Gaza could drag on, Netanyahu's government said on Sunday it was extending until Aug. 15 the period it would fund hotels and guest houses for residents evacuated from southern Israeli border towns.