AID TRUCKS TRICKLE INTO DARFUR AS SUDANESE ARMY PAUSES DELIVERY BAN

Thu 22 August 2024:

A fraction of available aid has passed through the Adre border crossing from Chad into Sudan’s hunger-ravaged Darfur region this week following a move by the Sudanese army to lift a ban on deliveries temporarily, Reuters has reported.

The army’s rival in Sudan’s devastating 16-month-old civil war, the Rapid Support Forces militia, controls most of Darfur and the Adre crossing, the quickest way into the region. The army had ordered aid agencies to stop using the corridor in February, saying that it was used by the RSF to get arms across the border, but last week rescinded that order temporarily for three months.

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After 15 trucks had moved through the crossing, out of a total of 131 at the border, the Sudanese government “instructed no more movements until procedures received yesterday are agreed,” said Justin Brady, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, on X late on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, the World Food Programme said that sorghum, pulses, oil and rice enough for 13,000 people had crossed on Tuesday evening, heading for Kreinik, West Darfur, one of 14 spots across the country that experts say is at risk of famine. However, added the WFP, it had food for 500,000 people ready to move. More than six million Sudanese face food insecurity across Darfur, with more than 25 million, or about half the population, in a similar situation across the country.

It was unclear if the food had reached Kreinik by Thursday. The RSF, which has looted aid trucks and warehouses on numerous occasions according to aid agencies, welcomed the deliveries in a statement late on Wednesday.

A document by the army-aligned Humanitarian Aid Commission showed that the procedures set by the government included the presence of Sudanese authorities and soldiers at Chadian warehouses and the border for inspections.

-MEMO

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