The Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric on Monday said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is deeply concerned about the worrying situation in the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur State, El Fasher, where there are reports of continued clashes posing a risk to hundreds of thousands of civilians who remain in the area.
He said famine conditions have already been confirmed in the Zamzam camp for displaced people, just outside of El Fasher, and other camps in the area are also likely to have famine conditions.
“Our colleagues in Sudan are closely following the developments and continue to advocate for an immediate stop to the fighting, and for the protection of civilians and humanitarian access – of both supplies and personnel – throughout the country,” he said. “In the first few days of October alone, tens of thousands of people have been displaced across Sudan due to fighting. This includes in North Darfur, West Darfur, and Sennar states, where airstrikes, clashes between rival forces, and insecurity near villages and markets have displaced as many as 42,000 people, both within Sudan and across borders. That is what the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is telling us.”
“We are also closely monitoring the cholera outbreak in Sudan. As of Saturday, 21,000 cases of cholera had been reported over the past two months, including more than 600 fatalities from cholera. That’s what WHO and Sudan’s Ministry of Health are telling us,” Dujarric added.
He reported that over the weekend, UNICEF was able to charter a plane that carried 1.4 million doses of oral cholera vaccines.
“That plane arrived in Port Sudan to bolster the response, which aims to vaccinate more than 1.8 million people in the most affected states – Gedaref, Kassala and River Nile State,” the spokesperson stated.