The author of the article is Patryk Strzałkowski, a journalist for Gazeta.pl.
The civil war in Sudan has been ongoing for almost a year and a half, and the situation for civilians is becoming increasingly dire. Now, in addition to widespread violence, lack of food, and medical aid, another threat has emerged: heavy rains and floods.
The largest humanitarian crisis in the world is currently unfolding in Sudan. Its scale and the number of people in need of assistance far exceed what we are dealing with in the case of the war in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. It's a large country that has effectively collapsed
- Wojciech Wilk tells us. The Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM) has been providing humanitarian aid in South Sudan for several years. Since the outbreak of war in neighboring Sudan, nearly 800,000 refugees have arrived there, and they too now need support.
"During the ongoing rainy season in Darfur (a region in western Sudan - ed.), very intense rains fell. This has also affected us, as the PCPM clinic near the border between Sudan and South Sudan was flooded" - says Wilk. As he explains, this further increases the danger for refugees and people in Sudan. Because floods mean "not only destroyed homes but also crops, leading to even greater hunger". "Rain and floods also bring more infectious diseases and malaria, as mosquitoes will breed in the standing water" - he says.
According to UN data, the effects of the floods have impacted at least 317,000 people, with about one-third forced to flee their homes. More than 50,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged in floods in various parts of the country, and on Sunday, a dam in northeastern Sudan collapsed, destroying tens of thousands of additional homes and killing 60 people. Increasingly extreme weather, including heavy rains, is driven by climate change. African countries are among the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming, despite contributing only a fraction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Hundreds of cases of cholera have been confirmed, and with the floods, not only germs but also snakes and scorpions are spreading, according to a UN report. It also exacerbates the hunger problem.
Catastrophic Level of Hunger
Military actions and mass displacement of people have caused the country to sink into famine a year and four months after the outbreak of the war. Almost 11 million people have fled their homes, mostly to other parts of Sudan. This makes it difficult or impossible to farm. The conflict has destroyed the economy and disrupted supply chains. The result is a lack of food for civilians - 25.6 million people, half the population of the country, are malnourished.
According to UN data, Sudan is experiencing the highest, catastrophic level of hunger. By the end of September, 750,000 people could die of starvation. And it is known that any harvest after the rainy season will not solve the problem. Too many people have fled their homes, too much land is affected by the war, and there is no one to farm or any means to do so. There is no prospect of the hunger threat ending
- warns Wojciech Wilk.
PCPM observes the consequences of this in its clinic near the border between Sudan and South Sudan, where thousands of refugees arrive. Before the years-long civil war and the eventual secession of South Sudan, they were one country. This is one of the reasons why the largest number of refugees from the ongoing conflict arrive there. But South Sudan itself is barely recovering from war; the economy there hardly exists, and residents largely rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
Many refugees have family in South Sudan. The local culture dictates that one must share. So if someone has a year's worth of supplies for their family - which is a luxury there- and their relatives arrive with their families, they will share everything. But eventually, they will run out of food. So the large number of refugees in South Sudan exacerbates the hunger problem there. And without this, the economic situation is dire, and the political situation can quickly become unstable
- says Wilk.
Infants on the Brink of Starvation
Wojciech Wilk, who has led PCPM for nearly 20 years, was at the Sudanese border a few months ago. He now reports:
I have observed many humanitarian crises, but I have never seen such a huge disparity between suffering and needs and the available aid. People arriving at the PCPM mobile clinic at the end of the refugee escape route have traveled 300-400 kilometers through the bush, mostly on foot. Along the way, almost every woman faces the threat of assault and rape. Refugees from Sudan arrive with nothing; they don't even have bundles—only the clothes on their backs.
At the border point, the organization's workers provide basic medical care, care for pregnant women, and test the sick for HIV and tuberculosis. "In July, we provided assistance to four people with tuberculosis, which poses a huge threat in overcrowded refugee camps" - says Wilk.
Data from just this one location illustrates the scale of the famine in Sudan. As the organization's head says, of the 7,200 people who arrived there in July, 880 were children with varying degrees of malnutrition, including 350 directly at risk of starvation. "Among the latter were many starving infants whose mothers, due to exhaustion from days of marching, malnutrition, and dehydration, had no milk" - he reports.
Every year, the UN reports that there are not enough funds to respond to all crises. Currently, there is war in Ukraine, in the Gaza Strip, climate change is driving more disasters like floods and heatwaves. The needs are growing, and humanitarian aid funding is not keeping up. Additionally, "forgotten" crises - such as the war in Sudan, which rarely or never appears on the front pages of Western media - mean even less money. Wilk believes that the lack of financial resources is "urgent". Although the needs are great, they do not have the money to expand their operations on the Sudanese border.
Not only PCPM but also other organizations do not have the funds to provide refugee families with even a $40 tarp to protect them from the rain, and there are thousands of families in need of such tarps
- he says, explaining:
Please understand, in a situation where every refugee from Sudan leaves the country empty-handed, the refugee camp must provide such tarps to everyone—because giving it to just a few families will create additional tensions among this already suffering community. We would like to do much more, but the lack of funds, logistical problems with delivering aid from Nairobi in Kenya, 2,000 km away, and the inability to safely enter Sudan itself are some of the many challenges faced not only by PCPM but also by other organizations.
Nowhere Is Safe
Two things primarily hinder or prevent aid: the scale of war violence and lawlessness, and the rainy season, which turns roads into mud. Providing aid, even during a conflict, is sometimes possible through negotiations with the warring parties and obtaining assurances of safety for workers or humanitarian convoys. However, in Sudan, there is "widespread violence" and there is no way to ensure safety. Convoys with aid are blocked, and medical facilities are attacked.
"Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control part of the country but do not take any responsibility for governing and the fate of the civilian population. In their own country, they behave like occupiers, engaging in destruction and looting. On the other hand, there is the Sudanese army, which considers itself the side with greater legitimacy to govern, but they took power in the country through a coup" - explains Wilk. He adds that the army has ruled Sudan almost non-stop since gaining independence in 1956. "Over these decades, the Sudanese army has not achieved great successes in developing the country, mainly engaging in civil wars, often fueled by the military itself" - he emphasizes, saying:
Delivering humanitarian aid in Sudan is very difficult and dangerous, and practically nothing reaches areas under RSF control. Port Sudan on the Red Sea, one of the few places where international organizations are present, is 800 km from Khartoum, and to reach Darfur, one must travel over 2,000 km—through a country engulfed in civil war. Now, during the rainy season, roads turn into impassable mud. That's why at PCPM, we focus on providing aid at the border between Sudan and South Sudan, where refugees are arriving.
Moreover, such a situation threatens to "spill over" the conflict. As Wilk says, almost all of Sudan's territory, but especially areas controlled by the RSF, are experiencing a vacuum in terms of state and law functioning. "There are no authorities, no police, no courts, no institutions in these areas. This is extremely dangerous because terrorist and criminal groups are very eager to take advantage of such a vacuum, finding shelter and creating operational bases there," he points out.
You can support PCPM's efforts in South Sudan through their website pcpm.org.pl/sudan.
