Sudan refugees face deepening hunger as funds dry up: UN
Since April 2023, war between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has created the world's largest displacement crisis, with more than 10 million people displaced inside the country.
Another four million have fled across borders, mainly to Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.
'This is a full-blown regional crisis that's playing out in countries that already have extreme levels of food insecurity and high levels of conflict,' said Shaun Hughes, WFP's emergency coordinator for the Sudan regional crisis.
The United Nations says its humanitarian response plan for Sudan -– also the world's largest hunger crisis -– is only 14.4 percent funded.
A UN conference in Spain this week aims to rally international donors, following deep funding shortfalls that have affected relief operations globally.
The WFP warned support to Sudanese refugees in Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya and the Central African Republic 'may grind to a halt in the coming months as resources run dry'.
In Egypt, which hosts around 1.5 million people who fled Sudan, food aid for 85,000 refugees -- 36 percent of those previously supported -- had already been cut.
Without new funding, the WFP warned, all assistance to the most vulnerable refugees would be suspended by August.
In Chad, where more than 850,000 people have fled but find little help in overwhelmed camps, the WFP said food rations would be reduced even further.
Around 1,000 refugees continue to arrive in Chad each day from Sudan's western Darfur region, where famine has already been declared and displacement camps regularly come under attack.
'Refugees from Sudan are fleeing for their lives and yet are being met with more hunger, despair, and limited resources on the other side of the border,' said Hughes.
'Food assistance is a lifeline for vulnerable refugee families with nowhere else to turn.'
Inside Sudan, more than eight million people are estimated to be on the brink of famine, with nearly 25 million suffering dire food insecurity.
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The Sun
3 days ago
- The Sun
Sudan refugees face deepening hunger as funds dry up: UN
KHARTOUM: Millions of people displaced by the war in Sudan are at risk of falling deeper into crisis as funding for food aid dwindles, the UN's World Food Programme warned Monday. Since April 2023, war between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has created the world's largest displacement crisis, with more than 10 million people displaced inside the country. Another four million have fled across borders, mainly to Chad, Egypt and South Sudan. 'This is a full-blown regional crisis that's playing out in countries that already have extreme levels of food insecurity and high levels of conflict,' said Shaun Hughes, WFP's emergency coordinator for the Sudan regional crisis. The United Nations says its humanitarian response plan for Sudan -– also the world's largest hunger crisis -– is only 14.4 percent funded. A UN conference in Spain this week aims to rally international donors, following deep funding shortfalls that have affected relief operations globally. The WFP warned support to Sudanese refugees in Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya and the Central African Republic 'may grind to a halt in the coming months as resources run dry'. In Egypt, which hosts around 1.5 million people who fled Sudan, food aid for 85,000 refugees -- 36 percent of those previously supported -- had already been cut. Without new funding, the WFP warned, all assistance to the most vulnerable refugees would be suspended by August. In Chad, where more than 850,000 people have fled but find little help in overwhelmed camps, the WFP said food rations would be reduced even further. Around 1,000 refugees continue to arrive in Chad each day from Sudan's western Darfur region, where famine has already been declared and displacement camps regularly come under attack. 'Refugees from Sudan are fleeing for their lives and yet are being met with more hunger, despair, and limited resources on the other side of the border,' said Hughes. 'Food assistance is a lifeline for vulnerable refugee families with nowhere else to turn.' Inside Sudan, more than eight million people are estimated to be on the brink of famine, with nearly 25 million suffering dire food insecurity.
The Star
22-06-2025
- The Star
Picking through despair
WITH flies buzzing all around them, a woman and her daughter picked through the pile of garbage bags for scraps of food at the foot of a destroyed building in Gaza City. She found a small pile of cooked rice, a few scraps of bread, a box with some smears of white cheese still inside. Islam Abu Taeima picked soggy bits from a piece of bread and put the dry part in her sack. She will take what she found back to the school where she and hundreds of other families live, boil it and serve it to her five children, she said. Her rummaging for food is a new sign of the depths of desperation being reached in Gaza, where the population of some 2.3 million has been pushed towards famine by Israel's nearly three-month blockade. The entry of a small amount of aid recently has done almost nothing to ease the situation. Before the war, it was rare to see anyone searching through garbage for anything, despite the widespread poverty in the Gaza Strip. Since Israel launched its military campaign decimating the strip after Oct 7, 2023, it has been common to see children searching through growing, stinking piles of uncollected garbage for wood or plastic to burn in their family's cooking fire or for anything worth selling – but not for food. For food, they might search through the rubble of damaged buildings, hoping for abandoned canned goods. Gaza's population of some 2.3 million has been pushed towards famine by Israel's blockade. — AP But Abu Taeima says she has no options left. She and her nine-year-old daughter Waed wander around Gaza City, looking for leftovers discarded in the trash. 'This is our life day to day,' she said. 'If we don't gather anything, then we don't eat.' It's still not common, but now people picking food from trash are occasionally seen. Some come out after dark because of the shame. 'I feel sorry for myself because I'm educated and despite that, I'm eating from the trash,' said Abu Taeima, who has a bachelor's degree in English from Al-Quds Open University in Gaza. Her family struggled to get by even before the war, she shared. Abu Taeima has worked for a short time in the past as a secretary for UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees and the biggest employer in Gaza. She also worked as a reader for blind people. Her husband worked briefly as a security guard for UNRWA. He was wounded in the 2021 war between Hamas resistance fighters and Israel and has been unable to work since. Israel cut off all food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza on March 2. It claimed the blockade and its subsequent resumption of the war aimed to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds. But warnings of famine have stoked international criticism of Israel. It allowed several hundred trucks into Gaza recently. But much of it hasn't reached the population, either because aid trucks were looted or because of the Israeli military restrictions on aid workers' movements, especially in northern Gaza, according to the UN. Aid groups say the amount of supplies allowed in is nowhere near enough to meet mounting needs. Abu Taeima and her family fled their home in the Shati refugee camp on the northern side of Gaza City in November 2023. At the time, she and one of her children were wounded in a tank shelling, she said. They first headed to the strip's southernmost city of Rafah where they sheltered in a tent for five months. They then moved to the central town of Deir al-Balah a year ago when Israel first invaded Rafah. During a two-month ceasefire that began in January, they went back to Shati, but their landlord refused to let them back into their apartment because they couldn't pay rent, she said. Several schools-turned-shelters in Gaza City at first refused to receive them because they were designated for people who fled towns in northern Gaza. Only when she threatened to set herself and her family on fire did one school give them a space, she said. Abu Taeima said her family can't afford anything in the market, where prices have skyrocketed for the little food that remains on sale. She said she has tried going to charity kitchens, but every time, they run out of food before she gets any. Such kitchens, producing free meals, have become the last source of food for many in Gaza, and giant crowds flood them every day, pushing and shoving to get a meal. 'People are struggling, and no one is going to be generous with you,' she said. 'So collecting from the trash is better.' The risk of catching disease isn't at the top of her list of worries. 'Starvation is the biggest disease,' she said. — AP
The Star
20-06-2025
- The Star
Roundup: On World Refugee Day, Sudanese still taking perilous routes in search of safety
KHARTOUM, June 20 (Xinhua) -- As the world observes World Refugee Day on Friday, thousands of Sudanese continue to embark on dangerous and uncertain journeys to escape a war that has shattered their country and made safety an increasingly distant prospect. For Ekhlas Abdul-Rahim, a 41-year-old widow and mother of four, the flight from Sudan's conflict has become an exhausting odyssey across borders and continents. After months of hardship, she and her children reached Egypt. "The plan was to stay in Egypt and find work to support my children, but I encountered major difficulties," Abdul-Rahim told Xinhua. Without legal residency or stable employment, they spent days sleeping on the streets before finding shelter with acquaintances. Unable to secure a future in Egypt, Abdul-Rahim decided to press on, setting her sights on Libya. But the journey grew even more perilous. After four months in Libya, she secured passage on an overcrowded rubber boat headed for a Greek island. "That was the biggest risk, the most dangerous part of our escape from Sudan," she said. "I feared for my children in the rough seas." Now living in a refugee camp outside Athens, Abdul-Rahim remains uncertain about what lies ahead. "We don't ask for much - only to live in peace, safety, and dignity, and for my children to grow up in a nurturing environment," she said. Others fleeing Sudan have taken different routes. Abdel-Aal Siddiq traveled east to Ethiopia's Metema region, where he spent more than 18 months in a refugee camp. "It was a painful experience, relying on meager aid. I'll never forget it," Siddiq said. Eventually, as security in Khartoum improved slightly, he returned home, but concerns remain. "Clean drinking water is scarce, electricity is mostly out, and diseases like malaria, fevers, and cholera are widespread. It's still tough, but we persevere," he said. Yahya Abdalla, a Sudanese journalist living in exile in Kampala, Uganda, for nearly two years, described being a refugee as "a fate imposed by war." "Being a refugee is not a choice; it is a destiny forced upon us by conflict and the collapse of livelihoods," Abdalla said. He warned that the world is losing sight of Sudan's crisis. "Sudan's crisis has become a forgotten one," he said, adding that even basic refugee registration often meets obstacles and assistance is minimal. Abdalla has no plans to return. "There is nothing left for us to return to," he said. "Everything was looted -- our homes, our offices. We lost everything." Despite limited improvements in security in parts of Sudan, migration and asylum expert Ahmed Abdel-Halim expects the exodus to continue. "Even before the war, Sudan struggled with poor services and limited livelihoods. Since the war, the suffering has only deepened," he said. "Anyone who finds a chance to migrate won't hesitate. All the conditions for migration are still there." According to the United Nations, one in three Sudanese have been displaced. Of those, 3.8 million have crossed into neighboring countries, primarily Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and South Sudan. Sudan has been locked in a brutal war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and forced millions to flee their homes.
