Darfur Update: UN Scrambles to Fill Humanitarian Gaps

by Michael Bear · 2009-03-17 11:39:00 UTC
Topics:

At a press conference yesterday, John Holmes - the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator - described the current humanitarian situation in Darfur following the expulsion of sixteen aid agencies.

According to Holmes, for many the impact would not be felt overnight, but in the weeks and months to come.

For instance, the World Food Program (WFP) has been able to arrange a one-off food distribution for the 1.1 million people who relied on the expelled aid agencies for food.  The WFP distributed enough food to last for two months.

That said, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that "the one-off food distribution cannot be repeated and short-term solutions are unsustainable in the longer-term."

Of more immediate concern are the provision of health services, clean water, and essential non-food items.

Overall, the expulsion of the sixteen aid agencies leaves as many as 1.5 million people without access to health care - including the almost 90,000 people in Kalma camp currently facing a meningitis outbreak.

Similarly, the expelled aid agencies were responsible for ensuring the supply of clean drinking water to 1.16 million people.

UNICEF now estimates that humanitarian agencies can only meet 30% - 35% of the need for clean drinking water.

(For more information on humanitarian needs, key gaps, and the planned response, please see the OCHA Sudan Situation Report #2, from March 13th.)

Holmes has also been clear that neither the UN, the Sudanese Government, nor the remaining NGOs has the capacity to fill these gaps, especially in the short-term.

To get a sense of just how difficult it is to deliver assistance, please see this map from UN OCHA, showing how food distribution sites are scattered across Darfur.

This second OCHA map shows areas of limited humanitarian access in Darfur as of February.

[Al Salaam IDP camp in North Darfur - Photo from Oxfam America / Eva-Lotta Jansson]

Michael Bear
PREVIOUS STORY:
Voting for the Fair Trade G9
NEXT STORY:
Campaign about Apple Factories in China Gains Wide and Diverse Support

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.