New food crisis in Sudan from floods strains UN agency’s resources
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) expressed deep concern today over an estimated 300,000 people cut off by floods in the northern part of Sudan, where it is already feeding 3.2 million people affected by war and drought, and warned that it might have to slash rations because of a severe shortfall in funding.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) expressed deep concern today over an estimated 300,000 people cut off by floods in the northern part of Sudan, where it is already feeding 3.2 million people affected by war and drought, and warned that it might have to slash rations because of a severe shortfall in funding.
Humanitarian organizations have not yet arrived to aid the latest victims in the Kassala region of northern Sudan, but an inter-agency mission that went there reports that food is a priority, WFP spokesperson Christiane Berthiaume told a briefing in Geneva. No aid has been able to get through because the roads are impassable.
This latest crisis puts WFP’s resources for Sudan further in the red, Ms. Berthiaume said. WFP is already supplying food to 3.2 million people affected by war and drought in both the north and south, but it has received only $40 million in response to its April appeal for $130 million.
The agency might have to envisage cutting food rations for thousands of persons because of the lack of resources, she added.