3-9 August Sudan News Summary: Food running out in El Fasher, South Kordofan SOS, violence against women

14 Aug

Arabic news roundup

By William Greenwood

Activists revealed on Saturday that El Fasher Takiya in North Darfur State has stopped receiving donations due to a lack of commodities in the city.
At least 300,000 civilians are trapped in the city without sufficient food, residing in 127 shelters and displacement centres, and approximately 42 residential neighbourhoods.
The Resistance Coordination Committees in El Fasher said in a statement that "the city's takiya has temporarily stopped receiving food donations for the city's residents due to the lack of basic commodities."
Hassan Saber Juma, Director of the Displaced Persons Department at the Humanitarian Aid Commission, stated that "99.9% of the shelters, gatherings, and residential neighbourhoods in El Fasher are outside the services of the takiyas supported by philanthropists."

Sudanese leaders issued an urgent SOS call on Friday to save the cities of Dilling and Kadugli in South Kordofan, where more than half a million people are living in catastrophic, life-threatening conditions due to the ongoing war and a stifling blockade that prevents the delivery of food, water, and medicine.
Today, tens of thousands of displaced families, including their children, elderly, and women, are scattered across the city of Dabaibat and its surroundings, living in the open, without shelter. They are facing heavy rains, harsh weather, and a lack of basic necessities.
According to the signatories of the SOS call, addressed to international relief organisations and the Red Crescent and Red Cross, the two cities are currently under siege and attack, with a complete lack of food, confirming that hospitals in Kadugli and Dilling are overwhelmed and threatened with closure.
Children are suffering from severe malnutrition, patients are finding themselves without treatment, and pregnant women are giving birth in extremely dangerous conditions.
The appeal emphasised that daily life in South Kordofan has become a struggle for survival, adding, "What is happening is not just a humanitarian crisis but a silent catastrophe, as people die a slow death while the world turns a deaf ear.”

Cholera cases increase in Darfur as the disease spreads to new areas

New cases of cholera have been recorded in central, northern, southern, and eastern Darfur, amid fears of a widespread outbreak in the region.
The emergency room in Derib al-Reeh, in the Balil locality of South Darfur, said in a statement that it had recorded five cases of cholera in the past 48 hours, including one death.
It stated that the town faces increasing risks as the disease continues to spread, calling on humanitarian agencies to intervene quickly to provide the necessary medicines, solutions, and health supplies to contain the situation and limit the spread of the epidemic to neighboring areas.
The emergency room in Khazan Jadeed, East Darfur, announced in a statement that the situation poses a real threat to the lives of thousands of residents, especially in areas suffering from difficult humanitarian conditions and a severe shortage of clean water and healthcare.

By Samuel Hunt

It had been thought that up to 400 civilians had been killed in the attack. However, a committee set up to investigate the death toll has so far “counted” more than 1,500 killed.
The Guardian uses intelligence reports and witness testimony to piece together what occurred during the atrocity carried out by the RSF in April.

People in Sudan’s North Darfur region are forced to eat animal fodder to survive as the RSF continues to lay siege to El Fasher – the last urban centre in the region under army control.
Starvation has reached the most severe level on the United Nations-backed food security scale – ‘IPC Phase 5’, indicating full-blown famine.
An outbreak of cholera has further added to the misery
Despite numerous pleas for help from the people within, aid agencies say they have been denied access to El Fasher. The WFP has said they have not been able to deliver aid for a year.

According to Salvator Nkurunziza, the UN Women representative in Sudan, “Displaced women and girls can be subject to the risks of exploitation and abuse, especially during the delivery of aid, where protection mechanisms are weak or absent in some locations.”
In a piece in The Atlantic, the situation in Khartoum, along with the violence inflicted upon women and girls, is outlined in a piece by Anne Applebaum.

Bill Greenwood