CAIRO, Feb 4: The United States and the United Nations are seeking to rally international support for humanitarian aid to war-ravaged Sudan, kicking off a new Sudan Humanitarian Fund with $700 million in contributions from the United Arab Emirates and the US.
The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would contribute $200 million to the initiative from a basket of $2 billion it set aside late last year to fund humanitarian projects around the world. The UAE said it would contribute $500 million. Saudi Arabia and several other participants promised they would make pledges but did not specify amounts.
“Today we are signalling that the international community will work together to bring this suffering to an end, and to ensure lifesaving aid reaches communities in such desperate, desperate need,” said UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs or OCHA. Fletcher co-hosted the fundraising event in Washington on Tuesday with US senior adviser for Arab and African affairs Massad Boulos.
Fletcher said they have set the beginning of Ramadan, on February 17, as a date “to make visible progress on this work”.
Boulos said the US has put forward a “comprehensive proposal” for a humanitarian truce that could be agreed on in the next few weeks.
Sudan has been in the throes of war since 2023, with the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary force and the Sudanese military clashing for power over the country. The UN estimates that over 40,000 people have been killed in the war, but consider that the true number could be many times higher.
The conflict created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with over 14 million people forced to flee their homes and with famine declared in several regions of Sudan.
Fighting has concentrated in the Kordofan regions recently after the RSF took over el-Fasher, one of the army’s last strongholds in the Darfur region.
But the military has since been making gains in Kordofan by breaking a siege in Kadugli and the neighbouring town of Dilling. On Tuesday, the Sudanese military announced that it had opened a crucial road between Kadugli and Dilling.
Kadugli was under siege by the RSF since the start of the war, and famine was declared there by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in November.
The RSF launched a drone attack Tuesday that hit a medical centre in Kadugli, killing 15 people including seven children, according to Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the war. (AP)
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