UN appeals for Security Council help to combat famine in Sudan

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Senior United Nations officials appealed to the Security Council on Tuesday for help in getting humanitarian aid access in Sudan "across borders, across battle lines, by air, by land" to fight famine that has taken hold in at least one site in North Darfur.

The United States last month suggested that the 15-member body consider authorizing aid access through border crossings like Adre from Chad. But Sudan's army-aligned government and council veto-power Russia said on Tuesday that there was no need for Security Council action.

"If there is a famine ... we are ready to cooperate with you, and we will open the crossings for any humanitarian assistance. It is not the government - that I am proud to present here - that is blocking humanitarian aid," Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed told the council.

A global hunger monitor - the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) - last week said more than 15 months of war in Sudan and restrictions on aid deliveries have caused famine in North Darfur's Zamzam camp for internally displaced people.

Sudan's government has rejected the finding, while Russia cast doubt on it.

The war in Sudan erupted in mid-April last year from a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule.

Zamzam is in an area that is the last significant holdout from the RSF across Darfur. The RSF has been besieging the area and no aid has reached the sprawling camp for months.

"When famine happens, it means we are too late. It means we did not do enough. It means that we, the international community, have failed," senior U.N. aid official Edem Wosornu told the Security Council on Tuesday.

CROSS-BORDER ACCESS

In February, the government banned aid deliveries through the Adre border crossing, one of the shortest routes to the hunger-stricken region. Government officials have claimed that the crossing is used by the RSF to move weapons.

Wosornu said Adre "would be the most effective route and would allow assistance to be delivered at the speed and scale required at this crucial, critical point." She also said that a U.N. Sudan aid appeal for $2.7 billion was only 32% funded.

Senior U.N. World Food Programme official Stephen Omollo said that until there was a ceasefire, "we urgently need the council's help to ensure we can carry out our work effectively, and without interference," adding that access was needed via Adre and other cross-border supply routes.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield has suggested the Security Council consider adopting a resolution to approve cross-border aid deliveries into Sudan, mirroring action it took on Syria. No such action is imminent, diplomats said.

Russia's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the council on Tuesday that the international community "should not interfere in the domestic affairs of Sudan on the pretext of the severe humanitarian situation and indicate to the legitimate authorities what humanitarian corridors should be open."

Between 2014 and 2023 the council authorized aid deliveries from neighboring countries to millions of people largely in opposition-held areas of Syria. Authorization was needed because Syrian authorities did not agree to the operation.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, additional reporting by Yomna Ehab and Nick Zieminski)