First war-time aid convoy reaches besieged south Khartoum

FILE – People gather to collect water in Khartoum, Sudan, May 28, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

“Civilians in a besieged area south of Sudan’s war-torn capital received their first aid convoy this week since the war began 20 months ago,” local volunteers said.

A total of 28 trucks arrived in the Jebel Awliya area, just south of Khartoum, the state’s emergency response room (ERR), part of a volunteer network coordinating frontline aid across Sudan, said Friday (December 27, 2024).

The convoy included 22 trucks carrying food from the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP), one truck from Doctors Without Borders and Care, and five trucks loaded with medicine from the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF.

The local group and UNICEF said the supplies would help meet the “urgent health and nutrition needs of an estimated 200,000 children and families”.

Jebel Awliya is one of many areas across Sudan facing mass starvation after warring parties cut off access.

Since the war began in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, nothing has gone in or out without both parties’ approval.

ERR volunteers endured months of negotiations, constant suspicion and threats of violence to secure even limited access.

“Access to the area has been essentially cut off due to the conflict dynamics,” UNICEF’s Sudan representative Sheldon Yett said, adding it took three months of talks to get the convoy through.

“The trucks were detained on more than one occasion, and drivers were understandably reluctant given the risks involved,” he told AFP.

The lack of access has also prevented experts from making an official famine declaration in Khartoum.

Famine has already taken hold in five areas of Sudan, a U.N.-backed report said this week.

The WFP says parts of Khartoum and Al-Jazira state, just to the south, may already be experiencing famine conditions, but it is impossible to confirm without reliable data.

Across the country, more than 24.6 million people – around half the population – are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.

Both sides have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians.

The war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted more than 12 million people, causing one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.