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UN demands security guarantees at 'highest level' for Sudan aid deliveries

UN's call comes after six trucks carrying food aid to Darfur region were looted en route.

Reuters

ICRC staff pack medical supplies for Sudan at a warehouse in Amman. / Photo: Reuters

The United Nations has called for security guarantees at "the highest level" to ensure desperately needed aid deliveries in conflict-torn Sudan, after six trucks carrying food aid to the Darfur region were looted.

The United Nation's top humanitarian official Martin Griffiths on Wednesday insisted on the need "to be sure that we have the commitments publicly, clearly given by militaries, to protect humanitarian systems to deliver".

"We will need to have agreement at the highest level and very publicly," he told journalists via video link from Sudan.

Griffiths arrived in Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast early Wednesday on an urgent mission to find ways to bring relief to the millions of Sudanese affected by the conflict that erupted nearly three weeks ago.

Griffiths said he had been informed by the UN's World Food Programme that six trucks bringing aid to the country's western Darfur region had been "looted en route" Wednesday, "despite assurances of safety and security."

He said the UN had a plan for delivering the aid and supplies needed to address the dire situation. But "we need access. We need airlifts. We need supplies that don't get looted," he insisted.

Deadly violence

"Looting of humanitarian stocks across the country has been a very sad phenomenon of these past weeks."

His comments came a day after neighbouring South Sudan announced that the warring sides had agreed "in principle" to a seven-day ceasefire.

It follows several shorter truces that have been repeatedly violated.

Deadly violence broke out on April 15 between Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who commands the regular army, and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

At least 528 people have been killed and nearly 4,600 wounded, according to the latest health ministry figures, which are likely to be incomplete.

The fighting has spurred more than 100,000 people to flee Sudan into neighbouring countries, while more than 330,000 others have been displaced inside the conflict-ravaged country, according to the UN.