In a move to support families in a country hit by almost three years of war, the European Union has launched and airlifted 8 planeloads with medical supplies and other day-to-day needs in an effort to tackle the current leading global humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
The European Commission’s department in charge of overseas aid unveiled the measure on Monday and said the flights will carry 3.5 million euros ($4.1m) of “life-saving supplies” to the western region, where “mass atrocities, starvation and displacement” have left millions of people in urgent need.
The commission’s Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations said in a statement that the first flight left on Friday, delivering about 100 tonnes of aid from EU’s humanitarian stockpiles and partner organisations.”
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According to him, further flights will continue throughout this month and January, it said, listing water, shelter materials, and sanitation, hygiene and health items among the supplies being transported to “one of the world’s hardest places for aid organisations to reach”.
It noted that the fall of North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, which was seized by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in late October, marked a “major escalation of an already catastrophic humanitarian situation” and has made aid access even harder.
Al-jazeera media Network reports that the RSF took control of el-Fasher after an 18-month siege that cut residents off from food, medicine and other critical supplies, prompting more than 100,000 people to flee, many to the town of Tawila, which has become the epicentre of the region’s spiralling humanitarian crisis.
It said those who fled el-Fasher reported mass killings, kidnappings and widespread acts of sexual violence as the RSF raided the city. United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk accused the group of committing “the gravest of crimes”.
GLOBAL TRACKER learned that Sudan has been wrecked by civil war since April 2023 between the military and the RSF militias.
The war has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, killing tens of thousands of people, displacing millions, and pushing parts of the country into famine.