Heavy rains are hampering the delivery of badly needed food to hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the troubled Darfur region of western Sudan and creating a “logistical nightmare” for relief workers, a humanitarian source in the region said.
– The rains have become extremely heavy, slowing down food delivery and making more areas inaccessible, Richard Lee, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman, told IRIN from Darfur on Wednesday.
– For example, it rained so heavily yesterday that the main airstrip in El Geneina (capital of West Darfur) could not take cargo planes until after 2.00 pm today, Lee said adding: – If the weather continues like this, it will make our logistical problems even more difficult.
The UN food agency said it was scaling up its air operations using three Antonov 12 cargo planes to airlift nearly 100 metric tons of food daily to El Geneina. – As the rainy season reaches its peak, WFP is facing an ever-greater challenge in meeting the needs of Darfurs displaced and dispossessed, it said.
WFP added that should the runway at El Geneina become unusable because of weather, it would drop food by air directly to the town from two Ilyushin 76 planes, which are capable of dropping a total of 144 mt per day between them.
– Delivering food by air is an expensive option but at this time of the year we have no other choice in parts of Darfur, WFP Sudan Country Director, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, said adding: – The next six weeks will be critical as the rainy season really begins to bite – we have a massive task ahead of us.
WFP was reinforcing its capacity to move food by road and the first 21 of its 120 all-terrain trucks would leave the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Wednesday for El Geneina. Another 35 trucks were being cleared in Port Sudan, before proceeding to Khartoum and El Geneina.
Meanwhile, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Darfur is now estimated at 1,48 million, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. These included 1,2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 270.000 in host communities.
Jennifer Abrahamson, OCHA Sudan spokeswoman, said on Wednesday that as of 1 August, an estimated 62 percent of the conflict-affected population had been provided with food, 53 percent of the IDPs had received plastic sheeting and other non-food items and 36 percent had access to clean water. Primary health care facilities covered 50 percent of the population.
– General insecurity persists on the ground with continued violence carried out by various armed groups in addition to incidents of banditry and ongoing lawlessness, Abrahamson added.
Thousands of people have died in the Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year when two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), took up arms against the government accusing it of marginalising the region.
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
