Food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad will soon be ‘interrupted’, says WFP | News on humanitarian crises

Food aid is due to end in January in a country that hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war in Sudan.

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has announced that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad, including newly arrived refugees fleeing violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, will end in January due to a lack of funds.

Financial constraints and increasing humanitarian needs have already forced the WFP to suspend its assistance to displaced people and refugees from Nigeria, the Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the press release said.

From January, these reductions will extend to people in crisis in Chad, the WFP said in a statement on Tuesday.

More than 540,000 refugees have crossed the border from Sudan into Chad since war broke out seven months ago between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to the International Organization for Migration.

Many have fled West Darfur, where ethnic violence and massacres erupted again this month in the state capital, El-Geneina, pushing thousands more people to flee.

“It’s staggering, but more Darfurians have fled to Chad in the last six months than in the previous 20 years,” said Pierre Honnorat, WFP director in Chad. “We cannot leave the world alone and allow our vital operations to stop in Chad. »

The WFP said it needs $185 million to support the Chadian population over the next six months. For months, U.N. officials said there was not enough international interest in the crisis and they lacked funding.

“Darfur is rapidly descending into a humanitarian calamity. The world cannot allow this to happen. Not yet,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in June.