IOM: Tens of Thousands in Sudan Risk Death if World Doesn’t Step Up Response

Sudanese already displaced by conflict, walk near tents at a makeshift campsite they were evacuated to following deadly floods in the eastern city of Kassala on August 12, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese already displaced by conflict, walk near tents at a makeshift campsite they were evacuated to following deadly floods in the eastern city of Kassala on August 12, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
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IOM: Tens of Thousands in Sudan Risk Death if World Doesn’t Step Up Response

Sudanese already displaced by conflict, walk near tents at a makeshift campsite they were evacuated to following deadly floods in the eastern city of Kassala on August 12, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese already displaced by conflict, walk near tents at a makeshift campsite they were evacuated to following deadly floods in the eastern city of Kassala on August 12, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) urged countries to step up their donations in response to the world's largest displacement crisis in Sudan, warning on Tuesday that inaction could cost tens of thousands of lives.

The IOM has received just 21% of the support it needs to provide crucial aid to the Sudanese, already plagued by conflict and now facing hunger, disease and floods, Mohamed Refaat, who leads the IOM's Sudan mission, told a briefing.

"The international community is not doing enough," Refaat said.

"Without an immediate massive and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months," he added.

Some one in five people have been displaced in Sudan, with 10.7 million people internally displaced and 2.3 million having fled across borders, Reuters quoted the IOM as saying.

A conflict in Sudan that erupted in April 2023 has unleashed waves of ethnic violence and created famine-like conditions across the country.



US Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East is Heading Home

File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)
File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)
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US Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East is Heading Home

File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)
File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)

The Pentagon's rare move to keep two Navy aircraft carriers in the Middle East over the past several weeks has now finished, as the USS Theodore Roosevelt is heading home, according to US officials.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the Roosevelt to extend its deployment for a short time and remain in the region as the USS Abraham Lincoln was pushed to get to the area more quickly. The Biden administration beefed up the US military presence there to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies and to safeguard US troops, according to The AP.

US commanders in the Middle East have long argued that the presence of a US aircraft carrier and the warships accompanying it has been an effective deterrent in the region, particularly for Iran. Since the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip began last fall, there has been a persistent carrier presence in and around the region — and for short periods they have overlapped to have two of the carriers there at the same time.

Prior to last fall, however, it had been years since the US had committed that much warship power to the region.

The decision to bring the Roosevelt home comes as the war in Gaza has dragged on for 11 months, with tens of thousands of people dead, and international efforts to mediate a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group have repeatedly stalled as they accuse each other of making additional and unacceptable demands.

For a number of months earlier this year the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower remained in the Red Sea, able both to respond to help Israel and to defend commercial and military ships from attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. The carrier, based in Norfolk, Virginia, returned home after an over eight-month deployment in combat that the Navy said was the most intense since World War II.

US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements, said the San Diego-based Roosevelt and the USS Daniel Inouye, a destroyer, are expected to be in the Indo-Pacific Command's region on Thursday. The other destroyer in the strike group, the USS Russell, had already left the Middle East and has been operating in the South China Sea.

The Lincoln, which is now in the Gulf of Oman with several other warships, arrived in the Middle East about three weeks ago, allowing it to overlap with the Roosevelt until now.

There also are a number of US ships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and two destroyers and the guided missile submarine USS Georgia are in the Red Sea.