Conflicts
Sudan expert: Humanitarian situation is getting worse
In Sudan, the army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting for power since April 2023. There is hardly any help for the people. Photo
© Eva-Maria Krafczyk/dpa
The Sudanese army has been fighting the RSF militia for more than a year, and millions of people are on the run. The former UN special envoy warns that aid is mostly not reaching the local population.
The former UN Special Envoy for the Sudan, Volker Perthes, warns of a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the civil war-torn country. “It is getting worse because famine is looming,” said the political scientist in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”.
18 million people, almost half of the population of the country in northeast Africa, are threatened by acute hunger. “We have four or five children dying of hunger every day. And that number will increase over the next few weeks and months,” he warned. In Sudan, the harvest season actually begins at this time of year. But because of the war, no seeds could be delivered.
The situation in Sudan
In Sudan, the army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting for power since April 2023. The UN Security Council has called for an end to the fighting, but both sides are ignoring this. The RSF allows its soldiers to plunder captured cities, murder and rape there, Perthes continued. “And above all, the army has an air force and it bombs without considering the civilian population.”
Help for the people can only be achieved through “significant pressure on the conflicting parties.” At least in the contested city of Al-Fashir, the capital of the state of North Darfur in western Sudan, a local ceasefire must be enforced. “That means pressure – especially on the militia from its regional allies. And we must use pressure from regional allies to get the army to allow aid deliveries across the Chadian border to Darfur.”
At a donor conference in Paris in April, several countries promised Sudan aid totaling more than two billion euros. Germany pledged 244 million euros for Sudan and its neighbors. However, the aid supplies must also reach the local area, stressed Perthes. The army prohibits all deliveries to areas controlled by the RSF. According to Perthes, more than nine million inhabitants of the north-east African country have been displaced within the country or have fled abroad.