After conferring with Sudan’s rival military chiefs, the top UN aid official issued a warning, stating that the “will to end the fight still was not there”.
According to BBC reporter Martin Griffiths, Sudan’s spiral into violence is now reaching a risky tipping point.
In order to let humanitarian supplies into the nation, he demanded security assurances from the opposing factions.
The UN issues a warning, saying that hundreds of thousands of Sudanese may have to leave their homes due to the conflict.
Mr. Griffiths discussed “the rigid existential fact that those at war are keen to keep it going” openly in a BBC interview a few hours after his visit to Port Sudan.
While in the biggest port in Sudan, which is currently a vital hub for humanitarian aid and evacuation, he held separate phone discussions with competing generals in Sudan.
The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. Griffiths, demanded that they make firm public promises to ensure the timely delivery of supplies.
He stressed, as we sat down in the Saudi port city of Jeddah across the Red Sea from Sudan, “This is about specific protections for the movement of aid workers and goods and supplies – going down roads at certain times, airlifts from being shot down.”
Every day, foreigners and Sudanese, mostly holding second passports, board evacuation ships to escape the country’s abrupt plunge into widespread violence and rapacious looting.
Mr. Griffiths detailed the looting that had occurred in the majority of their warehouses that held humanitarian supplies. While travelling in an aid convoy to the Darfur region, six trucks were apprehended.
He requested in-person talks with the commander of Sudan’s armed forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the opposing Rapid Support Forces (RSF), his former subordinate General Hamdan Dagalo.
“I think it’s obviously urgent, this should be done in the next day or so,” he stated to us. “We’re working on it.”
The competing commanders have often broken the brief ceasefires they agreed to after the bombs dropped on April 15 and bullets began to fly in all directions. This has happened most frequently in the now-conflicted areas of Darfur’s western region and the capital city of Khartoum.
Over 100,000 Sudanese have reportedly fled via land borders or the Red Sea into neighbouring countries, while over 344,000 are reported to be internally displaced within a nation where millions have been forced to flee due to violence and lawlessness.
There might be an exodus of up to 800,000 people, according to the UN and other warning organisations.
Mr. Griffiths praised the humanitarian organisations and members of the local Sudanese civil society who are still steadfast in their commitment to carrying out the critical humanitarian operation.
Over 100,000 Sudanese have reportedly fled via land borders or the Red Sea into neighbouring countries, while over 344,000 are reported to be internally displaced within a nation where millions have been forced to flee due to violence and lawlessness.
There might be an exodus of up to 800,000 people, according to the UN and other warning organisations.
Mr. Griffiths praised the humanitarian organisations and members of the local Sudanese civil society who are still steadfast in their commitment to carrying out the critical humanitarian operation.
Mr. Griffiths voiced his surprise that Port Sudan, which had remained mostly unaffected by the war, was also under danger.
“Port Sudan is beginning to jump with masses of displaced people, some of them with no prospect of getting out to third countries.”
Thousands of Sudanese, Syrians, and Yemenis are currently stranded in the port city without the kind of documentation or assistance that would allow them to leave.
It is the tale of a whole country trying to escape this extremely unsettling and quickly getting worse war.
In response to questions on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ statement that the UN “failed to stop this war” because it overlooked all the warning signals, Mr. Griffiths said that “a lot of people didn’t see it coming”.
