CAIRO — More than half of Sudan’s population now depends on humanitarian aid to survive, the head of the Danish Refugee Council warned, as relentless fighting continues to tear through the country and deepen what aid workers describe as one of the world’s gravest crises, according to Arab News.
In an interview with AFP after a visit to the Chad–Sudan border, Secretary General Charlotte Slente said the scale of human suffering defies comprehension.
“We see a situation where more than 30 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. That is half of the population of Sudan,” she said, noting that entire communities are enduring conditions “unimaginable” to most of the world.
Sudan’s civil war now stretching beyond 18 months, pits the national army against the powerful Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since the conflict erupted in April 2023, tens of thousands have been killed and nearly 12 million forced from their homes. The country, once home to roughly 50 million people, has been hollowed out by violence and state collapse.
Slente’s field mission took her to a region of eastern Chad facing the war-ravaged Darfur area, where the RSF’s recent seizure of El-Fasher; the army’s last foothold in Darfur after a prolonged siege, has intensified alarm over mass atrocities.
“There are violations that cross all international humanitarian laws,” she said, citing evidence of mass killings, sexual violence, abductions, and torture. Entire cities, she warned, remain under siege with little international attention.
Babanusa in West Kordofan, as well as El-Obeid, Kadugli, and Dilling, have been cut off for months.
Slente accused world powers of responding with statements rather than action.
“The international community must stop managing the consequences of this conflict and start preventing the atrocities,” she said.
