UN humanitarian official tells the Security Council that aid to starving Sudanese is being blocked

UNITED NATIONS -- A U.N. humanitarian official told the Security Council on Tuesday that life-saving supplies are “ready to be loaded and dispatched” to a famine-stricken displacement camp in Sudan but the civil war's combatants won't let them through.

Edem Wosornu, operations director for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the council it is “still possible to stop this freight train of suffering” but that requires "the urgency that this moment demands.”

A report released Thursday found that the Zamzam camp in southern Sudan likely faces famine and the crisis will continue “as long as the conflict and limited humanitarian access continue.”

At least 500,000 people are sheltering in the camp, according to the report.

Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023 when fighting broke out between the military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, in the capital, Khartoum. The U.N. says over 14,000 people have been killed and 33,000 wounded, and more than 10 million are displaced.

Twenty-six million people in Sudan face acute hunger, Wosornu said. She said that since May the U.N. and partners have delivered food assistance to 2.5 million people facing the worst levels of hunger.

The relief supplies now waiting to be shipped to Zamzam include essential medicines, nutritional supplies, water purification tablets and soap, Wosornu said. Humanitarian workers cannot access additional supplies in neighboring eastern Chad after heavy rains flooded the last cross-border route that Sudanese authorities had permitted for aid transport.

“We simply cannot move the large volume of supplies required to save lives and fight back famine,” Wosornu said.

World Food Program Assistant Executive Director Stephen Omollo told the council that the agency will target people in Sudan facing “emergency, catastrophic levels of hunger” for aid delivery.

“We are significantly scaling up operations across the country to curb the spread of famine — boosting our capacity, presence and resources,” Omollo said.

The WFP official added that the organization will continue providing food and cash assistance to refugees in Chad as well as neighboring South Sudan and Libya.

Wosornu said the U.N. plans to distribute more than $100 million in cash and voucher assistance before the end of the year.

But both officials both urged Security Council members to increase humanitarian funding.

The humanitarian appeal for Sudan has received only $883 million of the $2.7 billion required, or 33%, according to OCHA.

Omollo also said the new report on famine must serve as a “wake-up call” for the council to persuade Sudan’s warring parties to halt fighting and secure cross-border aid routes.

Wosornu said aid workers in Sudan are “harassed, attacked, and even killed,” while supply convoys carrying food, medicine and fuel “have been subjected to looting and extortion.”

Sudanese U.N. ambassador Mohamed Ibrahim Elbahi accused the U.N. of downplaying the paramilitary’s practices of looting aid convoys — including the theft of more than 4,000 liters of fuel (1,057 gallons) from a U.N. convoy this week — and deliberately starving civilians.

“The fact that these violations are not condemned emboldens (the RSF) to commit more atrocities. It also contributes to a wrong narrative on the source of real suffering in Sudan,” Elbahi said.

Elbahi also contested the humanitarian officials’ claims related to border crossings, saying Sudanese authorities opened nine air, sea and land crossings this year, in addition to approving visas for thousands of aid workers.

The ambassador also vehemently denied that the Zamzam camp faces famine, accusing the experts behind it of “declaring famine on a political basis” as “punishment” for Sudanese authorities despite their cooperation with the U.N.