The United States Agency for International Development in Sudan said that it joins its partners in the World Food Program in condemning the looting of food supplies from its headquarters in Al-Jazira State in the center of the country.
Members of the Rapid Support Forces stormed a warehouse and an office of the World Food Programme, as they took control of the city of Wad Madani, the capital of Al-Jazira State.
The agency added – in a statement on the page of the US Embassy in Khartoum – that this food was sufficient to feed approximately 1.5 million people suffering from severe food insecurity in Sudan for one month.
Yesterday, Thursday, the World Food Program said that fighters of the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan looted the rations for caring for about 20,000 malnourished children and breastfeeding mothers.
The program stated that the looted food items, such as legumes, sorghum, vegetable oils, and nutritional supplements, are estimated at more than 2,500 tons of food, which are life-saving materials for many.
“Already desperate Sudanese people fleeing the fighting have been robbed of vital aid they needed,” Michael Dunford, World Food Programme’s Regional Director for East Africa, said in a statement issued yesterday.
He added, “This is intolerable and must stop,” and continued, “The Rapid Support Forces must ensure protection for humanitarian aid, its workers, and its buildings, in the areas it controls.”
A week ago, the World Food Program announced the suspension of its food aid in various parts of Gezira State due to the continued escalation of violence south and east of the capital, Khartoum.
Since December 15, the island has joined the war, in a development that the Sudanese did not expect. It is the state bordering Khartoum from the south and has a high population density.
About 300,000 people fled Al-Jazira State as a result of the outbreak of clashes, creating a humanitarian crisis, in the latest wave of large-scale displacement after the fighting spread across the region, according to a statement by the International Organization for Migration a week ago.
The matter was exacerbated when the Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti,” took control of the city of Wad Medani, the state capital, on December 18.
Since mid-April, the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, which the army describes as rebels, have been fighting a war that has left more than 12,000 dead and more than 6 million displaced and refugees, according to the United Nations.
