2023-04-30 08:17:07
Both the European Commission and the UN World Food Program (WFP) warned on Sunday of an escalation of the armed conflict in Sudan and its impact on the region. As the army and paramilitaries continue to fight bloody battles for power in the country, Britain has ended the evacuation of its citizens from Sudan.
“There is a real risk that the crisis will spread to neighboring countries in the region,” Janez Lenarcic, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Crisis Management, told Welt am Sonntag. Other states that are “extremely fragile” border Sudan. “The consequences would be disastrous. Nobody can want that – that’s why the first priority must be to bring the two warring parties to their senses,” he said.
Lenarcic expects the situation in Sudan to worsen, which was already dramatic before the current crisis and “now can only get worse”. “The country is on fire, lacking everything: clean water, food, medicine, fuel,” said the commissioner.
Hundreds of humanitarian programs across the country have been suspended, warehouses looted and transportation that aid workers rely on destroyed. The two warring parties alone are responsible for this – but the civilian population of Sudan has to “pay for it,” said Lenarcic.
The ongoing violence in Sudan might also plunge the entire region into a humanitarian crisis. “Even before the fighting broke out, a third of the country’s population was starving, now there is a shortage of everything and food prices are skyrocketing,” said WFP Germany director Martin Frick. Similar price increases are also occurring in the neighboring countries of Chad and South Sudan.
Both countries have taken in thousands of refugees since the fighting began in Sudan. “In South Sudan, which is sinking into floods due to the climate and drying up elsewhere, food prices have risen by 28 percent in a very short time,” said Frick. Added to this is the tense situation in the Horn of Africa, where following six failed rainy seasons, the need is also at a record level.
In Sudan, de facto President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has been fighting his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo with the help of the military since April 15. He is the leader of the influential paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two generals had taken over the leadership of the country with around 46 million inhabitants through two joint military coups in 2019 and 2021.
Britain has ended the evacuation of its citizens from Sudan. The last British military flight left the African country late on Saturday evening, the Foreign Ministry said in London on Sunday morning. A total of at least 1,888 people were taken out of the country on 21 flights. It is estimated that thousands of Britons might still be in the country.
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