After nearly three months of fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the spiral of violence and death continues, and international agencies and organizations face a major challenge in their attempts to reach millions of Sudanese with humanitarian aid.
Shortage of funds, security restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles by local authorities hampering the delivery of vital aid, inability to access conflict zones and violations of humanitarian laws are the challenges for those who want to get a little help to those in need.
Aid agencies are struggling to allocate the limited resources available because, although nearly three million people have received aid since April, they are heavily reliant on neighbors and collaborative networks due to the lack of safe humanitarian corridors to areas of tension.
In addition to the shortage of funds, aid organizations point out that local authorities are blocking the issuance of visas and imposing restrictions on the import of aid supplies due to the withholding of permits.
These measures, which appear to be for security purposes, are attempts to tighten control over humanitarian operations, humanitarian workers and volunteers have complained.
“Due to the nature of the conflict, combatants on both sides are indifferent to the rules of humanitarian law, making the delivery of aid dangerous and unpredictable. “Foreign workers were quickly evacuated as violence erupted and access is difficult,” Mukesh Kapila, a former UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told reporters.
The Sudanese Red Crescent, in turn, announced that insecurity is the main obstacle to its operations.
Likewise, lootings of warehouses and humanitarian offices are reported, leading to the closure of some of those institutions’ headquarters in the capital, and both competing forces are accused of complicity in these actions, thereby undermining their previous commitments to facilitate humanitarian assistance thereafter the recent mediation efforts in Saudi Arabia.
According to the United Nations, more than $3 billion is urgently needed from international donors to support humanitarian aid in Sudan and neighboring countries hosting large numbers of refugees, but last week at a meeting in Geneva achieved little. The obligation to pay half of the required amount.
mgt/ycv