WFP delivers food aid to Darfur as Sudan famine looms

The World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday it had negotiated the delivery of the first two convoys of food aid into Sudan's Darfur region in months, amid warnings of impending famine caused by a one-year war and lack of access to food aid.

The war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has sparked widespread hunger in the country, after destroying infrastructure and markets and displacing more than eight million people.

Catastrophic hunger, the term used on the household level for famine conditions, is expected in Khartoum and West Darfur, which have seen the fiercest attacks, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), as well as in many other areas of Darfur that house millions of displaced people.

One convoy with 1,300 tonnes of supplies was able to arrive via the Adre border crossing with Chad into West and Central Darfur, two areas already seeing emergency levels of hunger after being overrun by the Rapid Support Forces.



Reuters