CAIRO (Reuters) – The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Sunday it had temporarily suspended all operations in Sudan after three of its staff were killed in fighting between the army Sudanese and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) every day. earlier.
“While we review the evolving security situation, we are forced to temporarily halt all operations in Sudan,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain said in a statement.
“WFP is committed to assisting the Sudanese people who are facing food insecurity, but we cannot do our life-saving work if the safety and security of the teams and the our partners is not guaranteed.”
Three WFP staff were killed and two wounded in clashes in Kabkabiya in North Darfur. A WFP spokesman told Reuters that the three dead were all Sudanese.
McCain also said it was difficult for WFP staff to operate after a UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) plane was “significantly damaged” at Sudan’s Khartoum airport during an exchange of ‘ fires on Saturday.
He said that the incident had a serious impact on the organization’s ability to manage humanitarian workers and aid in Sudan.
Earlier on Sunday, the United Nations condemned the killing of WFP employees, saying they died in the line of duty.
Volker Perthes, the head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission (UNITAMS), which was established in 2020 to support Sudan’s democratic transition, said in a statement that he was also “shocked by reports of projectiles hitting UN and other humanitarian buildings, as well as reports of looting of UN and other humanitarian buildings in various locations in Darfur.”
A power struggle between the Sudanese army and the RSF has so far killed 56 civilians and injured 595 people, including fighters.
Fighting broke out on Saturday between army units loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. It was the first such outbreak since the two joined forces to oust president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019.
(Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir, writing by Omar Abdelrazek and Hatem Maher; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Raissa Kasolowsky)
