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| June 24, 2008 |
UN calls for urgent action as ration cuts continue in Darfur
When I spoke at the United Nations Security Council, four representatives of humanitarian agencies working in the region were invited to speak. All declined for fear of reprisals by Khartoum.The most recent malnutrition survey was released last September. It stated that in some of the camps 30-40% of the population was suffering from acute malnutrition. Nine months later, after food rations have been halved and access to displaced people is more limited, malnutrition studies gathered by aid workers have not been authorized for release. Aid workers can say nothing. This is unacceptable.
Khartoum, 23 June 2008 - WFP has warned that millions of displaced Sudanese in Darfur are to face their third month of ration cuts as violence and attacks on trucking convoys continue to disrupt the flow of food assistance to the region.
Some 2.7 million people will soon face their third month of a 42 per cent ration cut at the same time as the hunger gap looms : the difficult months from now until harvest in October. WFP expects as many as 3.6 million people could need food assistance during the hunger gap, but the effects of hijackings and insecurity on deliveries mean there is no end in sight to lower rations.
'In July, we will be forced to maintain the reduced ration because we already project that there won't be enough food in our Darfur warehouses,' said WFP representative in Sudan Kenro Oshidari.
'Since January, there have been 81 hijackings of our trucks. We have had two drivers killed, 41 drivers are missing and we have 55 trucks missing. Just today, there were four attacks on our WFP trucks. Two were attacked on the way between Kutum and ElFasher, and two enroute from Geneina to Mornei,' Oshidari told journalists on June 22.
'Our concern is that two months ago, the government promised to increase the frequency of escorts for our truck convoys to once every 48 hours. The implementation has been delayed, and so, since May, we have been forced to resort to ration cuts. And if we don't improve deliveries, we can't restore the full ration,' Oshidari said.
Darfur needs a massive 44,000 metric tons of food assistance every month. With each truck carrying an average of 20 metric tons, this calls for at least 2000 truck trips per month in and out of the remote region.
'If we had any other alternative, we'd take it, but we don't,' Oshidari said. 'But we're very worried about the effects of the reduced rations, particularly for children, who are most at risk of malnutrition.'
WFP and seven other humanitarian agencies in Sudan issued a joint statement, warning that a limited time remained to safeguard against an increasingly precarious situation. The agencies said overstretched water and sanitation services meant diseases such as diarrhea and acute respiratory infections would have an even greater impact in the rainy season, and would be made worse if people were weakened by a shortage of food.
The agencies- the International Organization for Migration (IOM); Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO); United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); United Nations Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC); World Food Programme (WFP); and the World Health Organization (WHO) - said underlying the potential crisis is the continued insecurity in the region, which led to an additional 180,000 people being displaced from their homes in the first five months of 2008.
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