UN convoy attacked on the way to Sudan's al-Fashir, UNICEF says
GENEVA, June 3 (Reuters) - A U.N. convoy delivering food into Sudan's al-Fashir in North Darfur came under attack overnight, a spokesperson for the U.N. children's agency told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that initial reports indicated "multiple casualties".
"We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked last night while positioned in Al Koma, North Darfur, waiting for approval to proceed to al-Fashir," a UNICEF spokesperson said in response to questions. She did not say who was responsible.
Famine conditions have previously been reported in al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, as two years of war has cut off supplies.
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The Independent
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Starving Sudanese people eating weeds to survive amid brutal war
People in Sudan are resorting to boiling wild plants and weeds with salt to survive, as the country grapples with a devastating war and widespread hunger. For many, these desperate measures are the only means to quiet the pangs of starvation. Among those struggling is A.H., a 60-year-old retired school teacher, who penned a love poem to a plant known as Khadija Koro, grateful for the lifeline it offered. He wrote that it was "a balm for us that spread through the spaces of fear", and kept him and many others from starving. A.H., who requested anonymity due to fears of retribution from the warring factions for speaking to the press, is one of 24.6 million people in Sudan facing acute food insecurity – nearly half the nation's population, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated into full-scale fighting, initially in the capital Khartoum and then spreading across the country. The war has claimed over 20,000 lives, displaced nearly 13 million people, and pushed vast swathes of the population to the brink of famine in what aid workers have described as the world's largest hunger crisis. Aid organisations report that the conflict has caused market prices to skyrocket, severely hampered aid delivery, and drastically shrunk agricultural lands in a country once considered a global breadbasket. The situation is particularly dire in regions such as Kordofan, the Nuba Mountains, and Darfur, where areas like El Fasher and the Zamzam camp remain inaccessible to groups like the Norwegian Refugee Council, as confirmed by aid worker Mathilde Vu, who is based in Port Sudan. Some individuals are surviving on just one meal a day, often a simple millet porridge, while in North Darfur, some have even resorted to sucking on coal in a desperate attempt to ease their hunger. On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Sudanese military leader Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and asked him for a week-long ceasefire in El Fasher to allow aid delivery. Burhan agreed to that request, according to an army statement, but it's unknown whether the RSF would agree to that truce. A.H. said aid distribution often provided slight relief. His wife in children live in Obeid and also struggle to secure enough food due to high prices in the market. His poem continued: 'You were a world that sends love into the barren time. You were a woman woven from threads of the sun. You were the sandalwood and the jasmine and a revelation of green, glowing and longing." Fighting restricted travel, worsening food insecurity Sudanese agricultural minister Abu Bakr al-Bashari told Al-Hadath news channel in April that there are no indicators of famine in the country, but there is shortage of food supplies in areas controlled by the paramilitary forces, known as RSF. However, Leni Kinzli, World Food Programme Sudan spokesperson, said 17 areas in Gezeira, most of the Darfur region, and Khartoum, including Jebel Aulia are at risk of famine. Each month, over 4 million people receive assistance from the group, including 1.7 million in areas facing famine or at risk, Kinzli said. The state is suffering from two conflicts: one between the Rapid Support Forces and the army, and another with the People's Liberation Movement-North, who are fighting against the army and have ties with the RSF, making it nearly impossible to access food, clean water, or medicine. He can't travel to Obeid in North Kordofan to be with his family, as the Rapid Support Forces blocked roads. Violence and looting have made travel unsafe, forcing residents to stay in their neighborhoods, limiting their access to food, aid workers said. A.H. is supposed to get a retirement pension from the government, but the process is slow, so he doesn't have a steady income. He can only transfer around $35 weekly to his family out of temporary training jobs, which he says is not enough. Hassan, another South Kordofan resident in Kadugli said that the state has turned into a 'large prison for innocent citizens' due to the lack of food, water, shelter, income, and primary health services caused by the RSF siege. International and grassroots organizations in the area where he lives were banned by the local government, according to Hassan, who asked to be identified only by his first name in fear of retribution for speaking publicly while being based in an area often engulfed with fighting. So residents ate the plants out of desperation. 'You would groan to give life an antidote when darkness appeared to us through the window of fear.,' A.H. wrote in his poem. "You were the light, and when our tears filled up our in the eyes, you were the nectar.' Food affordability Ms Vu warned that food affordability is another ongoing challenge as prices rise in the markets. A physical cash shortage prompted the Norwegian Refugee Council to replace cash assistance with vouchers. Meanwhile, authorities monopolize some markets and essential foods such as corn, wheat flour, sugar and salt are only sold through security approvals, according to Hassan. Meanwhile, in southwest Sudan, residents of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, rely on growing crops, but agricultural lands are shrinking due to fighting and lack of farming resources. Hawaa Hussein, a woman who has been displaced in El Serif camp since 2004, told the AP that they benefit from the rainy season but they're lacking essential farming resources such as seeds and tractors to grow beans, peanuts, sesame, wheat, and weika — dried powdered okra. Ms Hussein, a grandmother living with eight family members, said her family receives a food parcel every two months, containing lentils, salt, oil, and biscuits. Sometimes she buys items from the market with the help of community leaders. 'There are many families in the camp, mine alone has five children, and so aid is not enough for everyone … you also can't eat while your neighbor is hungry and in need,' she said. El Serif camp is sheltering nearly 49,000 displaced people, the camp's civic leader Abdalrahman Idris told the AP. Since the war began in 2023, the camp has taken in over 5,000 new arrivals, with a recent surge coming from the greater Khartoum region, which is the Sudanese military said it took full control of in May. 'The food that reaches the camp makes up only 5 per cent of the total need. Some people need jobs and income. People now only eat two meals, and some people can't feed their children,' he said. In North Darfur, south of El Fasher, lies ZamZam camp, one of the worst areas struck by famine and recent escalating violence. An aid worker with the Emergency Response Rooms previously based in the camp who asked not to be identified in fear of retribution for speaking with the press, told the AP that the recent wave of violence killed some and left others homeless. Barely anyone was able to afford food from the market as a pound of sugar costs 20,000 Sudanese pounds ($33) and a soap bar 10,000 Sudanese pounds ($17). The recent attacks in ZamZam worsened the humanitarian situation and he had to flee to a safer area. Some elderly men, pregnant women, and children have died of starvation and the lack of medical treatment, according to an aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he's fearful of retribution for speaking publicly while living in an area controlled by one of the warring parties. He didn't provide the exact number of those deaths. He said the situation in Zamzam camp is dire—'as if people were on death row.' Yet A.H. finished his poem with hope: 'When people clashed and death filled the city squares,' A.H. wrote, 'you, Koro, were a symbol of life and a title of loyalty.'
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Over a third of people on sinking Tuvalu seek Australia's climate visas
SYDNEY, June 29 (Reuters) - More than one-third of the people in the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu, which scientists predict will be submerged by rising seas, have applied for a landmark climate visa to migrate to Australia, according to official figures. Tuvalu's ambassador to the United Nations, Tapugao Falefou, told Reuters on Sunday he was "startled by the huge number of people vying for this opportunity", and the small community was interested to learn who the first lot of climate migrants would be. Tuvalu, one of the countries at greatest risk from climate change, which experts say is boosting sea levels, has a population of 11,000 on its nine atolls scattered across the Pacific between Australia and Hawaii. Since applications for Australia's visa lottery opened this month, 1,124 people have registered, with family members bringing the total seeking the visa to 4,052 under the bilateral climate and security treaty. Applications close on July 18, with an annual cap of 280 visas designed to ensure migration to Australia does not cause brain drain from Tuvalu, officials said when the treaty was announced in 2023. The visa will allow Tuvalu residents to live, work and study in Australia, accessing health benefits and education on the same basis as Australian citizens. "Moving to Australia under the Falepili Union treaty will in some way provide additional remittance to families staying back," Falefou said. By 2050, NASA scientists project daily tides will submerge half the main atoll of Funafuti, home to 60% of Tuvalu's residents, where villagers cling to a strip of land as narrow as 20 metres (65 feet). That forecast assumes a 1-metre rise in sea levels, while the worst case, double that, would put 90% of Funafuti under water. Tuvalu, whose mean elevation is just 2 metres (6 feet 7 inches), has experienced a sea-level rise of 15 cm (6 inches) over the past three decades, one and a half times the global average. It has built 7 hectares (17 acres) of artificial land, and is planning more, which it hopes will stay above the tides until 2100.
The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
Sudan civil war overwhelms border town in neighbor Chad as refugees find little help
Fatima Omas Abdullah wakes up every morning with aches and pains from sleeping on bare ground for almost two years. She did not expect Sudan 's civil war to displace her for so long into neighboring Chad. 'There is nothing here,' she said, crying and shaking the straw door of her makeshift home. Since April 2023, she has been in the Adre transit camp a few hundred meters from the Sudanese border, along with almost a quarter-million others fleeing the fighting. Now the U.S.- backed aid system that kept hundreds of thousands like Abdullah alive on the edge of one of the world's most devastating wars is fraying. Under the Trump administration, key foreign aid has been slashed and funding withdrawn from United Nations programs that feed, treat and shelter refugees. In 2024, the U.S. contributed $39.3 million to the emergency response in Chad. So far this year, it has contributed about $6.8 million, the U.N. says. Overall, only 13% of the requested money to support refugees in Chad this year has come in from all donors, according to U.N. data. In Adre, humanitarian services were already limited as refugees are meant to move to more established camps deeper inside Chad. Many Sudanese, however, choose to stay. Some are heartened by the military's recent successes against rival paramilitary forces in the capital, Khartoum. They have swelled the population of this remote, arid community that was never meant to hold so many. Prices have shot up. Competition over water is growing. Adre isn't alone. As the fighting inside Sudan's remote Darfur region shifts, the stream of refugees has created a new, more isolated transit camp called Tine. Since late April, 46,000 people have arrived. With the aid cuts, there is even less to offer them there. 235,000 Sudanese in a border town Adre has become a fragile frontline for an estimated 235,000 Sudanese. They are among the 1.2 million who have fled into eastern Chad. Before the civil war, Adre was a town of about 40,000. As Sudanese began to arrive, sympathetic residents with longtime cross-border ties offered them land. Now there is a sea of markets and shelters, along with signs of Sudanese intending to stay. Some refugees are constructing multi-story buildings. Sudanese-run businesses form one of Adre's largest markets. Locals and refugees barter in Sudanese pounds for everything from produce to watches. 'There is respect between the communities,' said resident Asadiq Hamid Abdullah, who runs a donkey cart. 'But everyone is complaining that the food is more expensive.' Chad is one of the world's poorest countries, with almost 50% of the population living below the poverty line. Locals say the price of water has quadrupled since the start of Sudan's civil war as demand rises. Sudanese women told The Associated Press that fights had broken out at the few water pumps for them, installed by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Even food aid could run out shortly. The U.N. World Food Program says funding to support Sudanese refugees in Adre is guaranteed only until July, as the U.S. aid cuts force a 30% reduction in staff worldwide. The U.N. refugee agency has seen 30% of its funding cut for this area, eastern Chad. Samia Ahmed, who cradled her 3-year-old and was pregnant with her second child, said she has found work cleaning and doing laundry because the WFP rations don't last the month. 'I see a gloomy future,' she said. Sudanese try to fill aid gaps Sudanese are trying to fill gaps in aid, running private schools and their own humanitarian area with a health clinic and women's center. Local and U.N. authorities, however, are increasing the pressure on them to leave Adre. There are too many people here, they say. 'A vast city,' said Hamit Hadjer Abdullai with Chad's National Commission for the Reception and Reintegration of Refugees. He said crime was increasing. Police warn of the Colombians, a Sudanese gang. Locals said it operates with impunity, though Abdullai claimed that seven leaders have been jailed. ' People must move,' said Benoit Kayembe Mukendi, the U.N. refugee agency's local representative. 'For security reasons and for their protection.' As the Chadian population begins to demand their land back, Mukendi warned of a bigger security issue ahead. But most Sudanese won't go. The AP spoke to dozens who said they had been relocated to camps and returned to Adre to be closer to their homeland and the transit camp's economic opportunities. There are risks. Zohal Abdullah Hamad was relocated but returned to run a coffee stand. One day, a nearby argument escalated and gunfire broke out. Hamad was shot in the gut. 'I became cold. I was immobile,' she said, crying as she recalled the pain. She said she has closed her business. The latest Sudanese arrivals to Adre have no chance to establish themselves. On the order of local authorities, they are moved immediately to other camps. The U.N. said it is transporting 2,000 of them a day. In Tine, arriving Sudanese find nothing The new and rapidly growing camp of Tine, around 180 kilometers (111 miles) north of Adre, has seen 46,000 refugees arrive since late April from Northern Darfur. Their sheer numbers caused a U.N. refugee representative to gasp. Thousands jostle for meager portions of food distributed by community kitchens. They sleep on the ground in the open desert, shaded by branches and strips of fabric. They bring witness accounts of attacks in Zamzam and El-Fasher: rape, robbery, relatives shot before their eyes. With the U.S. aid cuts, the U.N. and partners cannot respond as before, when people began to pour into Adre after the start of the war, U.N representative Jean Paul Habamungu Samvura said. 'If we have another Adre here … it will be a nightmare.' ___ For more on Africa and development: The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
