The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday said the organization’s Emergency Relief chief has departed for Sudan amid the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian condition in the country, reported Aljazeera.
“The scale and speed of what is unfolding in Sudan is unprecedented in the country,” Guterres wrote on Twitter. “In light of the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis, I am sending @UNReliefChief [Martin Griffiths] to the region immediately.”
In a separate statement, Griffiths said that the humanitarian situation in the conflict hit was reaching breaking point. He said there is a scarcity of essential goods and items, especially in Khartoum, and people were struggling to find food, water, and fuel. He added that the rising transportation cost was also making it difficult for poor people to head to safer locations.
The UN relief chief said that he was on his way to the region to explore how immediate relief can be provided to the millions of Sudanese people, whose lives have turned upside down overnight, reiterating the need for the fighting to stop.
The announcement was made on Sunday when the Sudanese Armed Forces also agreed to extend a temporary ceasefire with their paramilitary rivals, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), for a further 72 hours. The ceasefire was originally set to expire at midnight on Sunday.
Over 500 people have lost their lives and tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes since a long-simmering dispute between the armed forces and the RSF erupted into violence on April 15. Sudan’s military chief Abdel Fattah Burhan has been in conflict with Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the RSF.
Many foreign governments including the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Chad, and South Africa have evacuated their citizens from the country.
The fighting has also forced the UN to cease all ongoing humanitarian operations in Sudan where nearly 16 million people were already in need of aid.
