UN seeks pause in Sudan hostilities to access trapped families in El Fasher

United Nations, Aug 6 UN humanitarians pushed for a pause in hostilities in Sudan to reach trapped families facing starvation, particularly in the besieged city of El Fasher.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday that it seeks a standdown in order to rush in aid on a large scale and to restore a full UN presence.

"OCHA once again urges all parties to allow humanitarian access across the country and calls on donors to scale up flexible funding to meet Sudan's soaring humanitarian needs," the office said.

The humanitarians said needs are being driven by insecurity, disease, hunger, flooding and displacement, Xinhua news agency reported.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher said that with the risk of starvation on the rise in El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur State, time is running out.

OCHA said there are reports from the city indicating that sporadic shelling continues. The situation remains deeply unstable, with civilians bearing the brunt of recent clashes between armed groups and families being trapped in one of the country's most besieged urban centers.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said that with trade routes cut off and supply lines into El Fasher blocked, basic food items, such as sorghum and wheat, used to make traditional flatbread and porridge, cost up to 460 per cent more in the city than in the rest of Sudan.

The WFP said that very few community kitchens, set up by local groups during the war to provide hot meals to hungry people, are still functioning.

The agency said reports indicate that some families resort to eating animal fodder and food waste to survive. Many who managed to flee cited an escalation of rampant violence, looting and sexual assault.

UN Women's Gender Snapshot report shows women bear the brunt of the hostilities in Sudan.

The study shows that female-headed households face triple the risk of severe food insecurity compared to male-headed families. Three-quarters of female-headed households can not meet basic food needs. Just 1.9 per cent of them are food secure, compared to 5.9 per cent of male-headed households.

The study also shows that 73 per cent of women nationally do not meet minimum dietary diversity, endangering maternal and child health.

"This crisis is driven by systemic gender inequalities, compounded by conflict and displacement," said UN Women. "As more women are left to head households, often due to the death or disappearance of male relatives, they face the steepest barriers to food, income, and aid."

OCHA said that cholera continues to spread across the Darfur region.

The office said that in North Darfur alone, humanitarian partners reported more than 3,600 cases since late June. In South Darfur, more than 1,200 suspected cases and 69 deaths have been recorded.

However, OCHA said that its partners warn that underreporting may be masking the true scale of the outbreak. While UN partners have responded to the outbreak, limited access to clean water, sanitation and medical supplies compounds the crisis.

The office also said that nutrition needs are rising fast.

"Recent surveys show global acute malnutrition rates above emergency thresholds in all surveyed areas of North Darfur, reaching 34 per cent in the locality of Mellit and nearly 30 per cent in At Tawaisha," OCHA said. "These figures underscore an alarming deterioration, not just in famine-risk zones, but also in broader conflict-affected regions.

The United Nations and its humanitarian partners are scaling up outpatient therapeutic services and planning new stabilisation centers in hard-hit areas. Still, the office said urgent funding is needed to sustain and expand the work.

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