Denise Brown, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, says sources of energy and fuel 'appear to be systematically targeted' and that hospitals have had to stop dialysis. Meanwhile, a displaced persons' group reports 2,750 malnutrition cases in South Darfur's Kalma camp in October.
Drone attacks on Sudan's civilian infrastructure are disrupting electricity, water and fuel supplies and holding up humanitarian deliveries, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Denise Brown, said in an interview with UN News published on 3 November.
"Sources of energy and fuel appear to be systematically targeted and destroyed," Brown said, adding that such infrastructure is protected under international humanitarian law. She said World Health Organization staff had been at a hospital outside Khartoum when the power failed because of the strikes. With no generator or solar panels, she said, treatment for 25 dialysis patients "stopped, point blank."
Brown described queues kilometres long for fuel in Khartoum. Daily-wage workers such as tuk-tuk drivers were waiting several days to fill up and losing income as a result. "We have hundreds of trucks stuck because of a lack of fuel," she said of the UN's supply chain. "If we don't have fuel, we can't move."
'This must stop'
Brown did not attribute the strikes. "I don't know where those drone strikes are originating from," she said, but added: "There is no defence for repeatedly hitting power stations and fuel stations." She said responsibility lay first with "those sending the drone strikes", and then with UN member states to work to "temper the current situation". The army-led government blames the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the strikes on power stations and accuses Ethiopia of allowing launches from its territory, which Addis Ababa denies. The Tasis-led government, for its part, accuses the army of deadly drone strikes in Darfur, including on a Nyala market on 26 October.
Brown said the World Food Programme (WFP) convoys had been hit seven times this year and 20 times in two years, and that WFP was cutting both the number of people it serves and the size of rations because of funding shortfalls. She also cited severe rainfall deficits in parts of Darfur and Kordofan, which she said had people "on the move looking for food". She said the UN had seen "huge progress" on visas and permits from the authorities.
Malnutrition in Kalma
In South Darfur, Adam Rijal, spokesperson for the Coordination of Displaced Persons and Refugees, said Kalma camp recorded 2,750 malnutrition cases in October, with about 20 children admitted daily for acute malnutrition, Darfur24 reported. He blamed falling aid, rising food prices and poor rains, and urged the warring parties to agree a 90-day humanitarian truce.
Image: Denise Brown speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London in June 2023, when she was UN coordinator in Ukraine. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.