Sudan is at a \u201cbreaking point,\u201d a United Nations agency said Monday, as a growing number of people need food, water, shelter and medical care in a country devastated by intensifying war. <\/p>\n
Over eight million people have been displaced since fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last year, plunging the country into what the UN has called \u201cone of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWithout an immediate, massive, and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months,\u201d Othman Belbeisi, the Middle East and Africa director for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in a statement. \u201cWe are at breaking point, a catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
At least half of the displaced are children in a war tarred by \u201cappalling levels of rights violations, ethnic targeting, massacres of civilian populations and gender-based violence,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the UN-backed Famine Review Committee said at least one refugee camp in Sudan\u2019s Darfur region is experiencing famine, which the agency has only declared twice in Sudan\u2019s history. In May, the World Food Programme said people in that region had been forced to eat grass and peanut shells to survive. <\/p>\n
\u201cOver the next three months, an estimated 25.6 million people will face acute food insecurity as the conflict spreads and coping mechanisms are exhausted,\u201d the IOM statement said. \u201cMany other places\u201d in Sudan are also at risk of famine, it added. <\/p>\n
Armed forces are also blocking urgently needed aid deliveries to Sudan, and the IOM said it needs additional funding to reach those in need. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said a key bridge used by aid workers to reach the Darfur region collapsed last week after severe flooding. <\/p>\n
The warning comes as a new round of ceasefire talks led by the US and Saudi Arabia are expected to begin this week in Switzerland, the AP reported Monday. The RSF, which evolved from the Janjaweed militia that spearheaded the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s, has agreed to attend the talks, but Sudan\u2019s military has not. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the only safe route for humanitarian aid to reach Central & (South) Darfur,\u201d the agency said Monday in a post on X. \u201cThis adds another major obstacle to our efforts in delivering life-saving aid to Sudan.\u201d <\/p>\n
A Sudanese government delegation met over the weekend with US officials in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah in a bid to convince the military to attend Wednesday, but no breakthrough was achieved, according to the AP. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had extensive engagement with the SAF,\u201d Tom Perriello, the US special envoy for Sudan, told reporters Monday, according to the news agency. \u201cThey have not yet given us an affirmation, which would be necessary today for moving forward.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not given up hope that SAF will attend the talks,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sudan is at a \u201cbreaking point,\u201d a United Nations agency said Monday, as a growing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}