The United Nations on Wednesday urged countries not to forget the civilians caught up in the war in Sudan, appealing for $4.1 billion to meet their humanitarian needs, as well as support those who have fled to neighbouring countries.
A Sudanese refugee woman stands outside a shelter at the Gorom Refugee camp hosting Sudanese refugees, Reuters/Samir Bol
The United Nations on Wednesday urged countries not to forget the civilians caught up in the war in Sudan, appealing for $4.1 billion to meet their humanitarian needs, as well as support those who have fled to neighbouring countries.
A ten-month war in Sudan between its armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated the country's infrastructure, prompted warnings of famine and displaced millions of people inside and outside the country.
Half of Sudan's population - around 25 million people - need humanitarian assistance and protection, while more than 1.5 million people have fled to the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan, according to the U.N.
In its joint appeal with the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) launched on Wednesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called for $2.7 billion in funding to provide humanitarian aid for 14.7 million people.
"Sudan keeps getting forgotten by the international community," U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths told diplomats at the United Nations in Geneva.
"There is a certain kind of obscenity about the humanitarian world, which is the competition of suffering, a competition between places: 'I have more suffering than you, so I need to get more attention, so I need to get more money.'"
The U.N. refugee agency asked for $1.4 billion to support nearly 2.7 million people in five countries neighbouring Sudan as part of the appeal.
OCHA's appeal last year to provide aid to civilians in Sudan was less than half funded. Griffiths said the international community needed to act with a heightened sense of urgency.
"We must not forget Sudan," he said. "That's the simple message that I have to say today."
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber
Spain's Ceuta, still reeling from a rush of 72,000 migrants arriving on its shores in one week, is seeking the transfer of hundreds of unaccompanied minors still in the enclave to mainland Spain, local leaders said on Wednesday.
Libyan police said inmates staged a mass escape from a jail on Tuesday while armed clashes erupted nearby in two cities west of the capital Tripoli.
Spanish authorities should have anticipated the consequences of a court ruling that weakened a key deterrent against illegal migration and contributed to last week's mass crossings into the enclave of Ceuta in northern Morocco, a senior Moroccan official said on Monday.
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