WFP says 3.5 million people now hungry in Darfur

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, June 2 (Reuters) – The number of people in Sudan’s Darfur region who need food has jumped to 3.5 million — more than half of the population — as rural families join refugees in the hunger line, the United Nations said on Thursday.

Fatuma Adam Bisham arrived in Zamzam camp in North Darfur six months ago after her village came under attack by armed men. All she brought with her were her three children and her donkey. At home she had a plot on which she farmed millet, but now she has nothing. She tried to collect grass to sell; one donkey-load, which takes a day to collect, sells for 700 dinars (less than US$3). But now it has become too dangerous to leave the camp, and all she has is the relief assistance provided. (WFP).

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) will seek an additional $96 million for Darfur, bringing its budget to $563 million for the year, according to Holdbrook Arthur, WFP regional director for East and Central Africa.

Its massive aid operation, hit by a chronic lack of trucks and attacks on its land convoys, will also start flying mobile teams to remote areas to distribute rations, he added.

“We are talking about 3.5 million (people) including the local population who have lost or are dramatically losing their livelihood because of insecurity,” Arthur told a briefing after a two-week trip to Darfur. “A lot of people are going hungry.”

The Rome-based agency was finalising its appeal, to be issued next week, to provide 84,000 additional tonnes of food. Its initial appeal of $467 million was for 484,800 tonnes.

As the conflict has dragged on between rebels who took up arms against Sudan’s Arab-dominated government in 2003, the WFP has steadily increased its forecast of the numbers of needy.

At the beginning of the year, it had predicted this would peak at 2.8 million, including 2 million who fled violence and are staying in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

But continuing insecurity has stopped local farmers from planting crops and women are scared to leave their villages for food or firewood because of fears of attacks, according to WFP.

“The rural population is becoming more and more food insecure. They are in the same situation as the IDPs,” Jamie Wickens, WFP’s associate director of operations, told Reuters.

“It’s getting to be very serious, a vicious cycle,” he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was increasing the number of Darfuris it was feeding outside the camps to 320,000 from 250,000.

“We had already said last year that due to the difficult situation in the countryside there will be a very critical food gap this year,” Dominik Stillhart, head of the ICRC delegation in Sudan for the past two years, told a separate briefing.

“We can definitely confirm this is the case,” he said.

The Swiss-based ICRC deploys 100 expatriates and 800 nationals in Darfur, where it has distributed 10,000 tonnes of food in the first four months of the year, often crossing factional lines.

“We cannot do more, we are reaching our limit logistically,” Stillhart said.