Brussels 22.08.2024 In Sudan, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – OCHA – reports that more than a dozen aid trucks – including from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Organization for Migration have crossed into Darfur from Chad via the Adre border crossing.

OCHA continues to engage with the Sudanese authorities to facilitate additional humanitarian aid the coming days and months. (Image above: illustration).

WFP trucks were carrying sorghum, pulses, oil and rice for some 13,000 people at risk of famine in Kereneik, West Darfur. The International Organization for Migration says the essential relief items delivered to Sudan will support more than 12,000 people in need.

The Adre crossing from Chad is the most effective and direct cross-border route to deliver humanitarian assistance to Sudan at the scale and speed required to respond to the huge hunger crisis in the country. WFP says that trucks can cross into Darfur from Adre and reach key distribution points that very same day.

It is critical to sustain the flow of food and nutrition assistance into and across Sudan, where more than a dozen areas are either in or at risk of famine. WFP is scaling up food assistance there and aims to support more than 8 million people by the end of the year.

Meanwhile special consultations to end Sudan’s conflict and deliver humanitarian aid began in Geneva on Wednesday, August 21. According to El Tijani Sese, chair of the National Movement Forces (NMF), the choice for a new negotiating platform in Geneva instead of resuming the talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah “will lead to more intransigence among the warring parties”.

The Sudanese political scene is filled with uncertainty, and tensions about the proceeds of the negotiations in Geneva in Switzerland, initiated by the U.S. because the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) sent a delegation, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) refused to participate directly in the talks.

However, the Sudanese Sovereignty Council indicated that the SAF agreed to send a delegation to meet with U.S. and Saudi mediators in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, following calls from the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, and Egyptian officials.

El Tijani Sese, chair of the National Movement Forces alliance and former governor of Darfur, is not optimistic about the Geneva platform, and expressed his preference for the resumption of talks in Jeddah.

The Jeddah talks, under joint auspices of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, were suspended in December last year after the negotiations entered a stalemate.

Sese told Radio Dabanga that “as political forces, we have continued to engage with all international and regional initiatives that could lead to a solution to the Sudanese crisis”. He warned, however, that “these multiple initiatives will lead to more confusion for the political forces.

“We had hoped that the humanitarian and security issues would be contained in one initiative, which is the Jeddah platform, where SAF and RSF delegations agreed on several truces before reaching the Jeddah Declaration concerning the protection of civilians signed on May 11 last year,” the politician said.