Sudanese refugees face crisis in Chad as funds dry up: UN
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The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is urging $242 million in donations to sustain assistance for 1.2 million Sudanese refugees.
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Children eat porridge their mother cooked with the food she received at a World Food Programme (WFP) distribution site in Pibor, South Sudan. (UN)
A United Nations agency issued a warning on Tuesday that all life-saving food aid in Chad, which is being provided to hundreds of thousands of refugees from war-torn Sudan, will cease in April unless international funding is secured.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is urging $242 million in donations to sustain assistance for 1.2 million Sudanese refugees. This is particularly crucial as the impending rainy season threatens road access, hindering humanitarian deliveries in eastern Chad.
In a statement, WFP's Chad director Pierre Honnorat said "We are in a race against time...we’ve already cut our operations in ways that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, leaving hungry people close to starvation...We need donors to prevent the situation from becoming an all-out catastrophe."
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Sudan's expansive western region was still grappling with the aftermath of the devastation from 2003 when a conflict erupted last April between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The recent surge in violence has displaced approximately eight million people in Sudan, further exacerbating the situation for the over 400,000 refugees who had already sought safety in Chad between 2003 and 2020.
Nearly 230,000 children, new mothers risk dying of hunger
Earlier today, Save the Children warned that without critical action, nearly 230,000 children and new mothers in Sudan are "likely to die from hunger."
The bombing and destruction of fields and factories have plunged Sudan into "one of the worst" nutrition situations in the world, expressed Arif Noor, Save the Children's country director in Sudan.
"Nearly 230,000 children, pregnant women, and new mothers could die in the coming months," the British non-governmental organization warned. The charity emphasized that "more than 2.9 million children in Sudan are acutely malnourished and an additional 729,000 children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition -- the most dangerous and deadly form of extreme hunger."
It warned that "about 222,000 severely malnourished children and more than 7,000 new mothers are likely to die" under the current levels of funding which "only covers 5.5 percent" of Sudan's total needs.
'Largest hunger crisis' amid war
Earlier this month, a warning by the United Nations' World Food Programme declared that Sudan's almost year-long war "risks triggering the world's largest hunger crisis."
The war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the Rapid Support Forces, has left tens of thousands dead, and more than eight million displaced from their homes, which has made it the world's largest displacement crisis.
WFP executive director Cindy McCain said "Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake," adding, "Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world's largest hunger crisis and the world rallied to respond."
"But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten."
