UN delegation convened in the Sudanese city of Mellit to explore ways of delivering humanitarian aid and coordinating efforts to reach the states of North, East, and South Darfur. The meeting, as reported by “Sudan News,” was attended by Toba Howard, the Deputy Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs at the United Nations in Sudan, the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in North Darfur, Nadim, and the United Nations’ Security and Peace official.
Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, the Commissioner of Humanitarian Aid in Mellit locality, stated that the meeting discussed several topics, including methods of aid delivery, the local humanitarian situation, and the number of displaced persons.
Howard affirmed the organization’s commitment to providing the necessary humanitarian requirements for the displaced and refugees, highlighting the visit’s main objective of coordinating efforts with all relevant entities and finding effective routes for delivering humanitarian aid to the region and targeted areas.
Howard detailed three routes for aid delivery: “Port Sudan to Debba, Mellit, El Fasher” and another from Chad to El Tinay, Mellit, El Fasher, with a third route from Chad through Geneina and Zalingei to Nyala.
The UN delegation hopes the proposed routes will improve the distribution of humanitarian aid and meet the urgent needs of the displaced and refugees. It was decided to use the city of El Fasher as a coordination center for aid to the states of South, East, and North Darfur.
Following the meeting, the international delegation headed to the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, for further coordination to deliver relief trucks from Mellit and activate the proposed routes.
It is noted that over 17 trucks loaded with relief supplies are currently stationed in Mellit, 65 km north of El Fasher, due to security reasons. These trucks were en route to El Fasher, and Mellit is currently home to over 30,000 displaced persons from Nyala, El Fasher, Geneina, Zalingei, and Khartoum, living in temporary shelters.
The recent war in Sudan, which erupted on April 15, 2023, during Ramadan, is primarily a civil conflict between two factions of the country’s military government: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), under the command of Hemedti. After the removal of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in 2021, who attempted to mitigate Sudan’s economic crisis, the country faced escalating tensions. These tensions were exacerbated by the failure of negotiations over Sudanese governance, culminating in the December 2022 deal that aimed to transition to civilian leadership but was largely rejected by the populace and various political factions for not adequately addressing the role of the military and security forces in the government.
International and regional reactions to the conflict have been swift, with entities such as the United Nations, the African Union, and regional blocs calling for an immediate halt to the violence and a return to negotiations. Despite these efforts, the conflict has continued to escalate, spreading to other regions of Sudan and raising concerns over a broader regional destabilization.
