Sudan crisis risks worsening into catastrophe: UN relief chief
September 21, 2023 (NEW YORK) – A top United Nations official has warned that the crisis in Sudan is likely to deteriorate into a catastrophe that could engulf the entire country and the region, if urgent international action is not taken.
Briefing a high-level ministerial event on Thursday, Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, expressed concerns about the plight of people affected by the conflict in Sudan.
He called for a concerted international push for help in areas where it is needed.
“It is needed now, it was needed yesterday, and it will be needed tomorrow”, said Griffiths.
The violence between the army (SAF) and a paramilitary force (RSF) has become increasingly ethnic in nature, with earlier reports suggest there are “at least 13 mass graves” were discovered in places like El Geneina of Sudan’s Darfur region.
According to the UN, health systems have totally broken down, and some 1,200 children have died from malnutrition and preventable diseases such as measles.
The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, however, stressed that humanitarians were doing everything they can “to bring the response up to scale and speed”.
He also called on all parties to the conflict to recommit to regular senior-level dialogue to enable humanitarians to reach people in dire need, noting that the humanitarian community is doing everything it can to re-establish and bring the response up to scale and speed.
For her part, the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, said that neither warring party is close to victory, yet they continue their brutal fight, and civilians paid the heavy price for this violence.
She called on the national army and paramilitary forces to lay down their arms, more than five months after they began facing off in the streets of Khartoum.
Only a meaningful ceasefire, Di Carlo stressed, would end the suffering of people.
The fighting has now destabilised the entire region, leading to the deaths of more than 5,000 Sudanese, and displacing millions both within the African nation and across seven national borders, aid agencies say.
“Political inaction on Sudan has already exacted a heavy cost…In addition to essential humanitarian action we also need an increase in effective diplomacy”, DiCarlo said.
She called on the international community to do more to bring about a ceasefire and political settlement.
“More than 6 million Sudanese are one step away from famine. These numbers will keep growing, as long as the guns keep talking”, added the official.
At least 20.3 million people across Sudan are acutely food insecure and need food and livelihood assistance between July and September 2023, according to the latest integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on the war-torn nation.
(ST)