UN seeks unhindered aid supply routes

• “We need more UN boots on the ground,” says UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher. 
• UN says it expects protection for civilians and accountability and safe passages for civilians and aid convoys accessing people in need of aid in Sudan’s El Fasher.
• El Fasher was captured by the RSF last month after more than 500 days of siege, leading to the displacement of some 90,000 people since the end of October. 

The United Nation’s (UN) relief chief Tom Fletcher held “useful” and “tough” discussions with the two sides battling for control of Sudan this week, seeking unfettered access to supply aid to thousands of people in desperate need in Sudan.

In a press event on in New York on Monday, Fletcher said that he has travelled to various parts of the war-torn country and met leaders, frontline responders and survivors of the crisis.

“We need more UN boots on the ground,” Mr. Fletcher said. “The UN is a ship that was not built to stay in the harbour, and this visit has been part of that big push to make sure we’re mobilised closer to those we serve,” said Fletcher, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Mr. Fletcher said he had a “useful” meeting with General Burhan, leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), focused on getting “unlimited” and “unhindered” humanitarian access. He also met representatives from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in what was a “tough” discussion, where he set out “unequivocally” that the UN will be expecting protection for civilians and insisting on accountability and safe passages for civilians and aid convoys.

“We have, I think, a pretty strong agreement from the authorities [of the military government] in Port Sudan and the RSF on full access and safe passage for our convoys to go in and for civilians to get out,” Mr. Fletcher said. “Now let’s see what happens next.”

UN seeks access to ‘scene of crime’ El Fasher 

The UN also made progress on getting teams into El Fasher, in Darfur, on the organization’s terms, Mr. Fletcher added. “We’re not going to be instrumentalised,” he emphasized. “This is a potential crime scene, and we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the right people going in, and that the aid is genuinely neutral and impartial.”

El Fasher was captured by the RSF last month after more than 500 days of siege, leading to the displacement of some 90,000 people since the end of October. When asked about the number of deaths in El Fasher, Mr. Fletcher said there is no credible answer on how many have been killed so far.

There are hundreds of thousands of people in Tawila, but “many people clearly aren’t getting out of El Fasher,” he said.

“One of the things we want to do when we go in is to find out why that is and to see what the conditions are, in which they are being held there,” UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the Security Council on Monday.

Meanwhile, a recent UN report warned that the world’s most extreme food crises are driven primarily by armed conflict and violence, including famines in Gaza and Sudan – the first time such a hunger emergency has been declared in a single year.

Haiti, Yemen, the Sahel region in Africa and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among other areas of concern.

The African Union (AU) Special Envoy for Food Systems highlighted the situation on the continent – “the epicentre of global hunger.”

Dr. Ibrahim A. Miyaki said 20.4 per cent of the population is food insecure, twice the global average.  By the end of the decade, Africa will be home to over half of all hungry people on the planet.

War-torn Sudan is one of its gravest food emergencies, with 25.6 million people acutely food insecure, including 800,000 in famine conditions. Violence in eastern DRC has destroyed farms, displaced millions and left more than 25 million people going hungry.

“The cost of hunger in Africa is not only counted in numbers. It is felt in broken lives, uprooted communities, and lost futures,” he said.

‘A strategic and existential threat’

The UN Deputy Secretary-General noted that “the hunger-conflict nexus is a strategic and existential threat, and this Council must treat it as such.”

She highlighted the need for action on four fronts.

“First, humanitarian access must flow, ceasefires must hold, and international humanitarian law must be upheld,” said Ms. Mohammed.

She emphasised the need to build resilient food systems and promote stronger climate action, before concluding with a call for peace – “the only sustainable solution.”

“Let us choose to build a future where food is never again used as a weapon, where no child goes hungry because of war, and where food systems become engines of peace, resilience and hope rather than casualties of a conflict,” she said.

Read also: ‘Perfect storm’ in South Sudan demands urgent action ~ UN