South Sudanese head home from war-torn Sudan

Photo: Displaced people and returnees trek between the towns of Rotriak and Bentiu in Rubkona County, Unity State in South Sudan as roads become impassable for vehicles due to severe flooding. Intense rains make it difficult for humanitarian partners to access displaced people with aid in most Unity State counties. It also makes it challenging to move returnees from Sudan to their final destinations as roads become impassable. OCHA/Alioune Ndiaye

Source: https://www.unocha.org/latest/news-and-stories

___________________________

Article from World Food Programme (WFP)
By Eulalia Berlanga
Dated 3 October 2023 - here is a copy in full:

South Sudanese head home from war-torn Sudan

For many South Sudanese, Sudan was a refuge during their country’s civil war. Now WFP is assisting returnees, as they confront fresh hardship in their homeland

Aker Monychol Biar feeds her son a special food supplement to treat malnutrition. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga

When Aker Monychol Biar’s husband was killed in the latter years of South Sudan’s civil war, she headed north to Sudan, seeking safety and a job to pay for her children’s education. 

“There was nothing to eat and I needed to work for my children,” says Aker, a mother of five, who hails from South Sudan’s northern county of Malakal. “I’d heard there was manual work (in Sudan) that I could do.”

Now, she is back in Malakal after fleeing another war - this time in Sudan. Aker recounts her odyssey sitting outside a temporary shelter that she shares with other displaced people, as she feeds a special food supplement to fight malnutrition to her youngest child, an 18-month-old boy.

A displaced woman receives WFP food assistance in Malakal, South Sudan. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga

So far, nearly 300,000 people have crossed into South Sudan from Sudan since conflict erupted in that neighbouring country in April. The vast majority of new arrivals are South Sudanese.

Each has a variation of Aker’s story. In recent years, not just conflict, but climate shocks, soaring food prices and a depreciating currency converged to create a hunger crisis in South Sudan, forcing many families to leave in search of livelihoods and education in neighbouring Sudan.

Now, with another war raging, South Sudanese like Aker are going home - to face the same toxic mix of challenges that drove their exodus, but with even fewer resources to surmount them. As they continue streaming in, humanitarian organizations are struggling to respond as funding runs dry.

Displaced people at Malakal transit centre in South Sudan, where they face onward journeys to a new and uncertain life. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga

“We are seeing families turn from one disaster to another as they flee desperate circumstances in Sudan only to find despair in South Sudan,” says World Food Programme (WFP) Representative in South Sudan, Mary-Ellen McGroarty. 

Struggling to meet vast needs

Since the beginning of Sudan’s crisis, WFP has reached a quarter of a million people crossing into South Sudan with food and cash, along with high-energy biscuits and support to treat and prevent malnutrition. But it is not enough.

“WFP is struggling to meet the vast humanitarian needs at the border,” McGroarty says, “but we lack the resources needed to provide the response that’s required.”

Many people displaced by Sudan's conflict arrive in Renk, South Sudan, where rains have turned the dusty land into mud. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga

The majority of those fleeing Sudan arrive through a border crossing near Renk in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State - where the rainy season has turned the dusty land into a muddy mess.

Many of the newcomers are hungry, sick and exhausted. One in five children and more than a quarter of pregnant and breastfeeding women screened at the border are malnourished.

“It was a very hard journey. We didn’t have anything; no food, no water, no shelter, nothing. It was especially bad when it rained,” says South Sudanese mother Nyanchiu Pehok, who recently arrived in Renk with her eight children.

Nyanchiu Pehok with her son Cheng at a nutrition centre in Renk, where he was found to be acutely malnourished. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga

Nyanchiu went to Khartoum last year to attend her brother’s wedding. She decided to stay, hoping to earn a better living to support her family. She worked long hours washing clothes and cleaning houses, making sure her children never went to sleep hungry. 

Then Sudan’s conflict broke out, forcing her to make the homeward journey. Nyanchiu’s youngest child, nine-month-old Cheng, became sick while the family was still in Khartoum.

The journey to South Sudan only made things worse. At a nutrition centre in Renk, Cheng tested positive for acute malnutrition.

Displaced people in Renk wait to board a boat to Malakal, South Sudan. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga 

“The humanitarian situation for returnees is unacceptable,” says WFP’s McGroarty. “It is the most vulnerable members of these communities – women, children, the elderly and people living with disabilities – who are suffering the most.”

Hard times ahead

WFP and other humanitarian agencies are working to move newly arrived families like Nyanchiu’s onwards from Renk as quickly as possible. The food-secure region has traditionally had only a bare-bones humanitarian presence. It has since been overwhelmed by the influx. 

But moving people on - and meeting their most basic humanitarian needs - has been difficult. Besides insufficient funding, onward transport has been a challenge in an area with no suitable connecting roads.

South Sudan's White Nile is the main way to move conflict-displaced people onward from Renk, as road connections are challenging. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga

Instead, people are relying on the White Nile, a tributary of the Nile River. The journey by boat to Malakal takes two to three days. From there, the displaced still have a long and difficult journey to reach the communities they choose to settle in, and an even more difficult journey to rebuild their livelihoods.

A couple of weeks ago, Aker made the river journey to Malakal with her family. WFP had provided them, and thousands of other travelers in recent months, with vitamin-packed high energy biscuits - enough to tide them over for the trip. 

In Malakal, she received sorghum, oil, pulses and salt from WFP to feed her family. Funding constraints, however, mean the agency can only distribute half the amount of food families need. In practical terms, this equates to a little less than 300 grams of food per person, per day.

On a recent day, Aker cooked the pulses on an open fire as her children sat on the ground nearby. She had no money to add in spices or vegetables, but the children still ate the food with gusto.

Aker's children tuck into a simple meal made with WFP pulses. Photo: WFP/Eulalia Berlanga

“I am lucky because I received this food, but I don’t know how others will survive today if they get nothing," Aker says. "We’re facing very bad conditions and need a lot of things, but we are trying to support each other and trade what we can.” 

More families are arriving in South Sudan. Many have been living in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan for years, decades, or even generations. Now they are moving to rural areas of South Sudan, without the skills they need to restart their lives. 

They have survived difficult journeys. But for many, it’s only the beginning. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) is providing life-saving support to families at the border and at their final destination, but more resources are critical to ensure these families are not left behind. Across all of South Sudan, WFP has a US$536 million funding gap for the next six months. 

Learn more about WFP's work in South Sudan and Sudan

View original: https://www.wfp.org/stories/south-sudanese-head-home-war-torn-sudan

[Ends]

Sudan: Humanitarian Update (12 November 2023)

UN OCHA Humanitarian Update

Sunday, 12 November 2023

HIGHLIGHTS

• More than 6 million people have been displaced within and outside Sudan since mid-April 2023.
 

• A least 1.2 million people fled Sudan since mid-April seeking safety and protection in neighbouring countries.
 

• Sudan is now the largest child displacement crisis in the world, with 3 million children fleeing widespread violence.
 

• OHCHR raises concerns of women and girls being abducted, allegedly forcibly married and held for ransom.
 

• Sudan is one of the top four hotspots of highest concern for food insecurity according to the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme.
 

• The revised 2023 Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan appeal is only 33.8 per cent funded as of 12 November.

Download Report(PDF | 1.04 MB)

Read full analysis: 

https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/sudan/card/4HzR95AMmV/

[Ends]

In Chad, as in Sudan, tragic stories and soaring needs

Article at World Food Programme
By Elizabeth Bryant
Dated 24 July 2023 - here is a copy in full:

In Chad, as in Sudan, tragic stories and soaring needs

‘This is the price innocent people pay for war’ – WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain urges the international community to step up to help the ‘injured and malnourished

Sudanese refugee Hiba from West Darfur, Chad, survived hunger and deadly violence that has swept her homeland. 

Photo: WFP/Marie-Helena Laurent

They arrive in Chad by the thousands, the vast majority women and children crossing a desolate wind-swept border from Sudan. Some come on rickety carts and vehicles piled high with hastily gathered belongings; others by foot, with just the clothes on their backs. 

Many also bring with them horrific tales of killings and other abuses by assailants they cannot forget.  

“They took everything,” said 23-year-old Hiba from Sudan’s West Darfur region  (her real name has been withheld for her protection). “Money, food, clothes. They even killed relatives, friends.”

Three months of ferocious fighting in Sudan has displaced more than 3 million people, killed and injured thousands of others and fed already alarming hunger numbers, including in neighboring countries. Of those fleeing Sudan, an estimated 330,000 refugees and returning nationals have poured into Chad alone, swelling a refugee population that is already the largest in West and Central Africa. 

“The people I spoke with on the Chad-Sudan border told me absolutely heartbreaking stories of their dangerous journey, and of loved ones they lost along the way,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain, during a visit to Chad last week with United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed.

WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain during a visit to Adre, Chad. 

Photo: WFP/Julian Civiero

“Too many are injured and malnourished,” she added. “This is the price innocent people pay for war – what these people have been through is unacceptable, and the world must step up and help them.”

WFP is rapidly scaling up food and nutrition support, reaching roughly 164,000 new arrivals from Sudan to date, with plans to expand further to reach up to two million people countrywide in the coming months.

In Sudan, WFP has delivered food and nutrition assistance to more than 1.4 million people, despite daunting challenges. But continued fighting and access restrictions by warring parties make it extremely difficult for us to reach the millions more caught up in the conflict. That’s especially the case in West Darfur, where there are alarming reports of atrocities against civilians. 

Women who have fled Sudan's conflict receive WFP food assistance in Zabout Refugee camp in Chad. Photo: WFP/Marie-Helena Laurent

With fears that Sudan’s conflict could escalate further, potentially destabilizing the broader region, support for WFP food assistance in places like Chad – which can help maintain peace and stability – is more important than ever. 

“The global community faces a decision point,” said McCain. “We either act now and stop Chad from becoming another victim of this crisis that has gripped the region, or wait and act when it’s too late.”

Today, the mounting needs far outpace our available resources. In Chad, WFP plans to reach 2 million refugees and vulnerable Chadians with emergency assistance. But we cannot even assist half of them due to insufficient funds.

“In all my years with WFP I’ve never seen crises at this level with such little financing," said WFP's country director for Chad, Pierre Honnorat.

Thousands of conflict-displaced people have ended up in displacement camps in Adre, Chad. Photo: WFP/Julian Civiero

Some of the new arrivals are severely injured, some children so malnourished it is too late to save them. 

Meanwhile, seasonal rains in Chad risk cutting off key supply routes for food and other life-saving humanitarian supplies.

“It's no longer about giving them hope or safety,” Honnorat said. “They need to eat every day. The situation is really critical.”

Even before Sudan's conflict broke out, Chad faced soaring hunger. Today, a projected 1.9 million people countrywide are struggling with severe food insecurity during the June-August lean season between harvests. Around 1.3 million children are acutely malnourished, with some of the highest rates in refugee communities. 

Many of Sudan’s newly displaced have ended up, for now, in camps around the eastern Chadian border town of Adre.

Many of those crossing into Chad have been wounded in Sudan's conflict and some children are severely malnourished. 

Photo: WFP/Marie-Helena Laurent

Children chase each other around the newly erected stick-and-tarp shelters that dot a desert landscape recently greened by rains. Women in colorful robes wait patiently for WFP food distributions.

Inside her tent, Hiba cradles an infant daughter as she recalls her family’s flight to safety from West Darfur’s capital of El Geneina, where some of the worst violence has occurred. 

“They did such horrible things,” she said of the attackers, adding, “the most important thing is health and security – and even more important is food.” 

“We can see that they have suffered, many lost family members,” said WFP’s  Honnorat of the new arrivals, roughly 90 percent of whom are women and children. 

“You don't even dare ask that, 'Where are the men?'” he adds.  “You know the answer from others – that often they were killed.”

Abuobida, whose last name has also been withheld for his protection, counts among those men who made it out of Sudan alive. Like Hiba, he is also from El Geneina. He too lost friends and family in the fighting.

“They came to kill people, so they were on the road with motorbikes, with guns and with cars,” he recalls. “They entered houses and they took people’s things.”

During his journey to safety, he saw dead bodies along the roads. Abuobida arrived in Adre last month, alone and destitute. His family later joined him. 

He points to a small sack of sorghum and a pile of clothes inside the family’s tarp tent. “We don’t have anything else,” he said.

’They came to kill people,’  says Sudan refugee Abuobida of assailants in his home region of West Darfur. Photo: WFP/Marie-Helena Laurent

Many of those arriving have serious injuries. Children especially are malnourished. The most severe cases are hospitalized, with WFP providing temporary units for a makeshift hospital and medical logistics. But for some of the sickest, it’s too late. 

“Every week, children are dying,” said WFP’s Honnorat, stressing the importance of early malnutrition prevention and treatment.  

As Sudan’s conflict enters its fourth month, there is no reprieve either for Chad. 

“It’s a serious crisis,” Honnorat added, “and the problem is many more people are coming.” 

WFP urgently requires US$157 million to assist some 2 million people in greatest need in Chad and to stabilize a deteriorating situation. 

Learn more about WFP's work in Chad and Sudan click here to DONATE

View original: https://www.wfp.org/stories/chad-sudan-tragic-stories-and-soaring-needs

[Ends]

Sudan: How a tea-seller in Khartoum displaced by conflict led her family away from hunger

Article from World Food Programme (WFP) website
By 2 Mohamed Elamin 
Dated August 2023 - here is a copy in full:

Sudan: How a tea-seller displaced by conflict led her family away from hunger

Support from World Food Programme and its partners is providing families nutrition and security as they plan their next steps

Displaced people receive assistance from WFP and partners at a defunct farm in Wad Medani in Gezira state, Sudan. Photo: OCHA/Ala Kheir

“We fled into the unknown with no destination in mind,” says Awadeya Mahmoud, describing the night in April when the sound of an explosion woke up her family of ten. By dawn, they and the people living near them in their south-Khartoum neighbourhood decided enough was enough, and fled the capital.

A worsening security situation is making it increasingly difficult for the World Food Programme (WFP) to reach the 6.3 million people it intends to this year. Since conflict broke out in the country on 15 April, it has reached 1.5 million with critical supplies, including 40,000 children aged under-5, pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Two days after the bombing, Mahmoud and her children made it to Albageir village in Gezira state.

“The war displaced my whole family and my children never healed from the horror they felt,” she recalls. “They refused to eat or drink. They were just crying.”

Mahmoud recalls her last night in Khartoum and her escape to Madani. Photo: WFP/ Moe Salah

At the time, the family were out of money and had to sell what belongings they could to finance their journey to safety. “I fled my home together with my neighbours to arrive in Albageir [village] before reaching Wad Madani,” says Mahmoud, who leads a cooperative of women caterers, including tea vendors like herself.

“I had to sell [many of] my belongings to be able to take my family to safety,” she says.

Continued fighting in Sudan poses a threat to the current planting season and to farmers who are already struggling to cope with soaring prices of fertilizers and seeds.

When Mahmoud and her neighbours arrived in Madani, 186km from home, finding a place to sleep was extremely difficult. The city was already filled with displaced people from the capital, Khartoum. Luckily, the families she had arrived with found a house to cram into with a total of 37 children. 

People receive rations of flour, vegetable oil, salt, and yellow split beans. Photo: OCHA/Ala Kheir

With basic shelter in place, the problem of hunger persists. A third of Sudan’s population was already food-insecure before the war, according to WFP.

“We seriously suffered, we had a food problem and some of the children suffered from fevers and measles,” says Mahmoud.

She is among 24,606 people that WFP has assisted in Madani through its new hub in the city. 

Using food from WFP, Mahmoud put her skills to work and started cooking for fellow displaced people.

“We are on full stomachs now,” she says of the families who escaped with hers. “I was given flour, oil, and yellow split beans.

People make do in a window-less dilapidated structure on the farm. Photo: OCHA/Ala Kheir

Gezira is among 14 of the 18 states where WFP has assisted people in the past few months, alongside, for the first time, the River Nile and White Nile states. 

While many people have made it safely out of Khartoum, thousands of families remain trapped in conflict areas with no access to food and other basic needs. “My cooperative alone has 150,000 members and I am hoping that WFP will be able to help them,” says Mahmoud.

“What WFP is doing is not easy. It's what we need the most in Sudan because you’re mobilizing food around the world for people,” says Mahmoud.  

“Humanitarian needs have reached record levels and there is still no sign of an end to the conflict,” says Eddie Rowe, WFP’s Country Director for Sudan. 

“WFP is doing everything possible to deliver life-saving assistance to millions of people in Sudan, but insecurity and access constraints are restricting us from reaching more people, especially in Khartoum and West Darfur.”

The conflict has caused severe damage to critical infrastructure nationwide, and access to food, water, cash, fuel, healthcare, and other basic services has been fractured. Moreover, razed and looted markets, broken transport networks and dysfunctional markets have strained food availability.

In West Darfur, the situation is alarming with reports of ethnic violence against civilians. Insecurity is making humanitarian access to Sudan’s most food-insecure state nearly impossible.

WFP urgently requires US$410 million for its operations in Sudan to ensure immediate life-saving assistance to conflict-affected people like Mahmoud and her family.

Learn more about WFP's work in Chad and Sudan click here to DONATE

Sudan’s crisis sends hunger shockwaves across the region

Amid soaring funding needs and displacement, the World Food Programme aims to reach millions of people affected by the conflict with ready-to-eat meals, nutritional support and cash

View original: https://www.wfp.org/stories/sudan-how-tea-seller-displaced-conflict-led-her-family-away-hunger

[Ends]