Global aid official appeals for funds to help Sudanese
Global aid official urged the international community Sunday to provide more funds to help Sudanese citizens trapped by a monthslong military conflict between rival generals in the African nation.
Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said his organizations have received only 7 percent of the $45 million they appealed for to help those inside Sudan. The war pits the military against the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
“The needs are real,” he told The Associated Press in an interview in Cairo. “Sudanese people need urgent support, urgent solidarity and urgent interest.”
Sudan was plunged into chaos in April when simmering tensions between the military, led by Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere.
The conflict has turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. Many residents live without water and electricity, and the country‘s health care system has nearly collapsed. The sprawling region of Darfur saw some of the worst bouts of violence in the conflict, and the fighting there has morphed into ethnic clashes with RSF and allied Arab militia targeting ethnic African communities.
Clashes also intensified earlier this month in the provinces of South Kordofan and West Kordofan. A rebel group attacked Kadugli, the provincial capital of South Kordofan and clashed with the military, killing and displacing civilians, according to the UN mission in Sudan.
In Al-Fula, the provincial capital of West Kordofan, fighting erupted for days between the military and the RSF before local officials helped stop the clashes, the UN mission.
