59 aid trucks cross the Adre border into Sudan: OCHA

September 1, 2024 (PORT SUDAN) – 59 aid trucks carrying medical, food, nutrition, emergency shelter and essential household items crossed from Chad to Darfur via the Adre border crossing point between 20 and 30 August despite some challenges over border crossing procedures, the United Nations said.

The supplies, the UN relief agency (OCHA) said, are estimated to reach nearly 195,000 people in acute need in different parts of the country while about 128 aid trucks carrying supplies for an estimated 355,000 people are being prepared to cross into Sudan in the coming days and weeks to ensure steady flow of supplies.

Despite the surge of supplies through Adre, humanitarian partners have warned that ongoing rains and floods have damaged three major bridges in the region.

This, according to OCHA, has limited movements within Sudan’s Darfur region.

While progress has been made on the Adre border, funding resources are depleting and humanitarian funding is urgently required to sustain the supplies chain.

Nearly 150 humanitarian partners are reportedly on the ground racing against time to stop a large-scale famine from taking hold, but the window for action is closing.

More than 8 million of the 14.7 million people targeted for assistance this year have received some form of humanitarian aid between January and July but much more needs to be done. Urgent funding is needed to procure more supplies to enable humanitarians to mount a large-scale multisector famine prevention and response aid operation across the country, mainly in areas of acute need.

The 2024 Humanitarian response plan, seeking $2.7 billion, is 41 per cent funded.

Meanwhile Chadian authorities, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Migration Agency (IOM) have reported an influx of people forced to flee Sudan, including Sudanese refugees and Chadian returnees who arrived through over 32 border entry points mainly in the provinces of Ouaddai, Sila, Wadi-Fira and Ennedi Est in Eastern Chad.

Humanitarian workers are supporting the Chadian Government and local authorities to provide life-saving assistance and a set of protection services both in spontaneous sites, in the extension of old and the newly established settlements.

The Chadian government and UNHCR, have so far relocated 49 per cent of the refugees from the spontaneous arrival sites to the extension and newly established settlements where refugees and host communities benefit from services delivered by the humanitarian teams.

(ST)