US to give more than $200m in aid to war-torn Sudan

Almost 25 million people need aid as famine looms and 10 million have fled their homes, UN says

Mothers wait at a malnutrition centre to register for food aid for their children in the Tiamushro camp for internally displaced people in Kadugli, Sudan. AFP

The US announced on Thursday that it would send more than $200 million in new aid for civilians affected by the conflict in Sudan.

"This money is not a panacea," US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters at the UN. "In addition to funding the response to this crisis, we will continue to ...press for more cross-border and cross-line access."

Ms Thomas-Greenfield proposed that the Security Council explore all "tools at its disposal" to help improve humanitarian access to the country, including “authorising aid to move from critical crossings, like as the Adre border, into Sudan, as we had once done with cross-border aid into Syria".

In 2014, the Security Council established a mechanism allowing the UN to deliver humanitarian aid to rebel-held areas in north-western Syria without the government's authorisation.

Syria condemned the initiative as a breach of its sovereignty. The mechanism was terminated in July last year after Russia vetoed its renewal.

The ambassador called on the Sudanese warring parties to support an immediate ceasefire and remove barriers to humanitarian access, including by reopening the critical Adre border crossing with Chad for humanitarian workers.

“The people of Sudan are facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said. “People are eating dirt to survive, relying on tree leaves for nutrition.”

According to the UN, nearly 25 million people are in need aid as famine looms and 10 million people have fled their homes.

More than 2.2 million of those have left for other countries.

“Three months after the April 15 pledging conference in Paris, only two thirds of the pledges have been disbursed, and only about a quarter of the response has been funded,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said.

She said humanitarian access, “already severely restricted by the parties to the conflict, threatens to even further shrink”.

The northeastern African country plunged into chaos in April 2023 as long-simmering tensions between the national military and the notorious paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, erupted into open conflict in the capital, Khartoum.