Clementine Nkweta-Salami told a U.N. press conference that “horrific atrocities are being committed with reckless abandon, reports of rape, torture and ethnically motivated violence are streaming in,” communities and families have been torn apart, and almost 9 million people have been forced to flee their homes in what is now the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Nkweta-Salami told a U.N. news conference that hostilities in El Fasher have been escalating and clashes over the weekend and early this week caused dozens of casualties and displaced many more of the 800,000 people still in the city. Leni Kinzli, the U.N. World Food Program’s regional spokesperson, said on May 3 that at least 1.7 million people in Darfur were experiencing“People are resorting to consuming grass and peanut shells,” Kinzli said. “And if assistance doesn’t reach them soon, we risk witnessing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict-affected areas in Sudan.”
She said food, water and medicine are desperately needed in El Fasher, which is now completely surrounded. As an example of the difficulties the U.N. and other aid agencies face, she said a U.N. convoy with more than a dozen trucks carrying critical supplies for 120,000 people left Port Sudan on April 3 but still hasn’t reached El Fasher because of insecurity, checkpoints and delays in getting clearances.