WFP: ‘Grain from Ukraine’ docks in Port Sudan. 7,600 tonnes of flour on trucks for emergency distribution

THIS report brought tears to my eyes. Congrats to all involved. Great work.

World Food Programme (WFP) is working around the clock to urgently deliver critical food assistance to families in Sudan who are struggling with skyrocketing food insecurity, the WFP said in a statement yesterday.

WFP has been warning of a looming hunger catastrophe as the lean season approaches if civilians do not receive food assistance. Currently nearly 18 million people face acute food insecurity in Sudan, of which nearly five million are in emergency levels of hunger (IPC4). Read more.

From Radio Dabanga English
Dated Thursday, 29 February 2024 - here is a copy in full:

WFP: ‘Grain from Ukraine’ docks in Port Sudan

A shipment of 7,600 tonnes of wheat flour, donated by Ukraine to the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP) Sudan operation, has arrived in Port Sudan and is being loaded onto WFP trucks, for emergency food distribution (Photo: WFP / Abubaker Garelnabei)

Assigned to be a core part of food rations for one million conflict-affected people in Sudan for one month, a shipment of 7,600 tonnes of emergency food aid donated by Ukraine to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Sudan operation, has arrived in Port Sudan, WFP says. The wheat flour is being loaded onto WFP trucks for emergency food distribution.

As the war raging across the country enters its 10th month, WFP is working around the clock to urgently deliver critical food assistance to families in Sudan who are struggling with skyrocketing food insecurity, the WFP says in a statement issued yesterday.

WFP says that the shipment – part of Ukraine’s humanitarian ‘Grain from Ukraine’ initiative launched by President Zelensky – was made possible by the German Federal Foreign Office, which covered the operating costs of €15 million, including the transportation costs from Ukraine to Sudan, and the implementation and distribution within the country to people in need.

Bags of Wheat flour donated by Ukraine to the United Nations WFP Sudan that have arrived in Port Sudan (Photo: WFP / Abubaker Garelnabei)

“The humanitarian situation in Sudan is catastrophic but we need to act now to stop it from spiralling further out of control,” says Eddie Rowe, WFP’s country director in Sudan. “WFP is working at pace to get food assistance into the hands of families that need it as quickly as possible.”

The 7,600 tonnes of wheat flour will be provided to families, many of whom have fled their homes due to the fighting and are struggling every day to meet their food needs. “This donation has arrived at a critical time in Sudan’s hunger crisis as fighting continues to spread ahead of the lean season in May, when food typically becomes scarcer, and hunger rises,” WFP says.

“This donation will enable WFP to support people whose lives have been completely upended by the war. We are deeply grateful to the Ukraine and Germany for supporting the Sudanese people in their greatest hour of need,” says Rowe.

During a press conference held in the Belgian capital Brussels last week, Rowe pointed out that that “five million people in Sudan cannot afford a square meal a day”.

WFP has been warning of a looming hunger catastrophe as the lean season approaches if civilians do not receive food assistance. Currently nearly 18 million people face acute food insecurity in Sudan, of which nearly five million are in emergency levels of hunger (IPC4). WFP has already provided around seven million people with emergency food and nutrition support since the conflict began last April, yet needs continue to grow.

Logistical challenges

The ongoing humanitarian catastrophe across Sudan is exacerbated by logistical challenges faced by organisations in delivering food and medical aid to those most in need, in light of the conflict, breakdown in security, banditry, and communications blackouts.

New reports suggest that the disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea due to escalating security concerns and attacks on commercial vessels has increased the cost of delivering vital supplies to Sudan by 40 per cent.

As reported by Radio Dabanga yesterday, The Darfur Joint Forces, which withdrew from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur in November, have now completely stopped securing aid convoys from Port Sudan to El Fasher, due to renewed clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the North Darfur capital.

On February 22, the Darfur Network for Human Rights (DNHR) warned that El Fasher is witnessing “an intricate and dire humanitarian crisis as a violent conflict tightly grips the region”.

International law expert Motasim Ali has commented that “denying the right to humanitarian aid to civilians is considered a crime against humanity”.

Click for video

Bags of Wheat flour donated by Ukraine to the United Nations WFP Sudan offloaded in Port Sudan (Photo: WFP / Abubaker Garelnabei)

Source: https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/wfp-grain-from-ukraine-docks-in-port-sudan

END

Sudan: Shells hit Khartoum killing 10+ civilians

From BBC News
By Yussuf Abdullahi
BBC Monitoring
Dated Friday, 12 January 2024, 6:58 - here is a copy in full:

Shells hit Sudan capital killing civilians

AFP Copyright: AFP Image caption: Many civilians have been killed in indiscriminate shelling in Khartoum (file photo)

At least 10 civilians have been killed after Sudan's army and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group exchanged artillery fire in the south of the capital Khartoum.

Activist Muhammad Kindasha told Sudan Tribune news website that some of the victims died when an artillery shell hit “a house where a social event was being held” on Thursday.

He added that there were “fierce confrontations” between the army and the RSF in residential areas, describing the situation as “catastrophic”.

Shells also reportedly hit a local market.

Many civilians have been killed in indiscriminate shelling in Khartoum since the war between the army and the RSF began in April 2023.

Clashes between the two sides have intensified over the past week in the capital and the adjacent cities of Omdurman and Bahri, with the army claiming advances.

The conflict has killed at least 12,000 people and displaced more than seven million others, according to the United Nations.

Click here to view original. 

ENDS

Sudan crisis: Actress Asia Abdelmajid one of Sudan's first theatre stars killed in Khartoum cross-fire

Report at BBC News
By Zeinab Mohammed Salih 
Dated 4 May 2023 - full copy:

Sudan crisis: Actress Asia Abdelmajid killed in Khartoum cross-fire

IMAGE SOURCE, ALFAITORY FAMILY

Image caption, Asia Abdelmajid was one of Sudan's first theatre stars

The death of a well-known actress, killed in cross-fire in the north of Khartoum, has shocked residents of Sudan's capital. But she is just one of many civilians still in the city who are paying with their lives as the fighting continues to rage despite the latest ceasefire.

Zeinab Mohammed Salih is a journalist living in Omdurman, next to the Sudanese capital - she describes daily life for people caught up in the conflict.

__________________________

Asia Abdelmajid, who was born in 1943, was famous for her theatre performances - first coming to prominence in a production of the play Pamseeka 58 years ago.

It was put on at the national theatre in Omdurman to mark the anniversary of Sudan's first revolution against a coup leader. She was considered a pioneer of the stage - and the country's first professional stage actress, later retiring to become a teacher.

Her family say she was buried within hours of her shooting on Wednesday morning in the grounds of a kindergarten where she had been most recently working. It was too dangerous to take her to a cemetery.

It is not clear who fired the shot that killed her in the clashes in the northern suburb of Bahri. But paramilitary fighters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who are ensconced in their bases in residential areas across the city, continue to battle the army, which tends to attack from the air.

The RSF says the military tried to deploy members of the police's special force unit on Wednesday - but the group alleges it rebuffed their ground offensive.

The UN's top aid official has warned that the "will to end the fight still was not there" after speaking to Sudan's rival military leaders.

With a military jet flying overhead as I write and WhatsApp messages arriving with more bad news of my friends caught up in the fighting, it feels like neither side is serious about ending their deadly confrontation.

"I was sitting with my brother in the sitting room when we heard the loud noise of the shell and the dust coming from the kitchen - we thought the whole wall had just collapsed," my friend Mohamed el-Fatih, a fellow journalist, told me.

His apartment in Burri, east of the army's headquarters in central Khartoum, was bombed on Monday night.

"My neighbours upstairs and downstairs were terrified and screaming, we had to evacuate immediately to another area."

His suburb is completely occupied by the RSF and rockets are often fired from the military headquarters where it is believed Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief, and his aides are staying.

My friend Hiba el-Rayeh has also just been in contact in great distress after her mother Sohair Abdallah el-Basher, a respected lawyer, and two uncles were killed last Thursday by a shell that came from a bridge over the River Nile directed towards the Presidential Palace. They were living close by.

Her uncles had actually come to help them escape during one of last week's so-called humanitarian ceasefires.

In another suburb called Khartoum 2, to the west of the military headquarters, estate agent Omer Belal has decided to stay and guard his home.

The 46-year-old has sent his family to a safer district while he and a few other men in the neighbourhood seek to protect their properties from the looting and armed robbery that is occurring across the city.

People's houses, banks, factories, supermarkets and clothing shops are all being ransacked.

Another friend, who asked not to be named, spent five days in a restaurant in Khartoum 2 when the battles first broke out on 15 April.

He managed to escape during the first shaky ceasefire. First he went to the north of the city then decided to go overland to Ethiopia, a trip that took five days.

Now in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, he messaged to say he had seen piles of bodies as he left Khartoum 2.

Basil Omer, a medic and volunteer, described fleeing his flat when it was shelled in al-Manshiya, east of the army headquarters.

"We spent three days only sleeping on the ground. In the end it was impossible to stay there, I sent my children and their mother to el-Gezira state with my in-laws and I went to stay with my parents in Khartoum North," he said.

I live in Omdurman, regarded as one of the safest places in town - though bullets are constantly flying through people's windows.

A couple of days ago my neighbour was hit by a bullet in her leg while she slept following an airstrike, which have been happening about two times every hour. Although there were fewer strikes on Wednesday.

The Sudanese factions have agreed to a new seven-day truce starting on Thursday, but given that they are currently meant to be observing a humanitarian ceasefire and previous ones have broken down - none of us are holding our breath.

Each day we grow more despondent. Most residents of Khartoum feel abandoned and at a loss that the international community seems unable to exert their influence to bring the generals to heel, given they managed to get them to agree to share power with civilians in 2019 after long-time leader Omar al-Bashir was ousted.

IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS

Image caption, Central Khartoum has been devastated by almost three weeks of fighting

View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65467934

Condolences. God bless. Rest in Peace. + + +