December 24, 2024, 7:39 AM
December 24, 2024, 7:39 AM
Mahmoud is a mischievous teenager who has a huge smile despite having lost his front teeth in a rough child’s game.
He is a Sudanese orphan, abandoned twice and displaced twice in the terrible war his country is experiencing.
He is one of nearly five million Sudanese children who have lost almost everything as they are pushed from place to place in what is now the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet.
Nowhere else in the world are so many children fleeing, so many people living with such acute hunger.
A famine has already been declared in one area; many other people exist on the brink of starvation without knowing where their next meal will come from.
“It is an invisible crisis,” emphasizes the new UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher.
“25 million Sudanese, more than half of the country, need help now,” he adds.
At a time when too many unprecedented crises are occurring, when devastating wars in places like Gaza and Ukraine dominate the world’s aid and attention, Fletcher chose Sudan for his first field mission to highlight their difficult situation.
“This crisis is not invisible to the UN, to our humanitarian workers who are on the front line risking and losing their lives to help the Sudanese people,” he told the BBC as we accompanied him on his week-long trip.
Most of the people on his team working on the ground are also Sudanese who have lost their homes and old lives in this brutal power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (FAR).
Fletcher’s first field visit took him to Mahmoud’s orphanage, called Maygoma, in Kassala, eastern Sudan, which now houses nearly 100 children in a dilapidated three-story school converted into a shelter.
They lived with their caregivers in the capital, Khartoum, until the army and FAR clashed with each other in April 2023, capturing the orphanage while dragging their country into a whirlwind of terrible violence, systematic looting and appalling abuses.
When the fighting spread to the orphans’ new shelter at Wad Madani in central Sudan, those who survived fled to Kassala.
When I told 13-year-old Mahmoud to make a wish, he immediately flashed a big toothless smile.
“I want to be governor of the state so I can be in charge and rebuild the destroyed houses,” he responded.
Famine
For the 11 million Sudanese who were forced to move from one shelter to another, returning to what remains of their homes and rebuilding their lives would be the greatest gift.
For now, Even finding food to survive is a daily battle.
And for aid agencies, including the UN, getting it there is a titanic task.
After Fletcher’s four days of high-level meetings in Port Sudan, army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan announced in X that he had given permission to the UN to establish more supply centers and use three more airports regional organizations to deliver aid.
Some of the permits had already been granted before, but others represent a step forward.
The new announcement also came as the UN World Food Program (WFP) got the green light to reach affected communities behind FAR-controlled lines, including the Zamzam camp in Darfur that houses around half a million of people and where famine was recently confirmed.
“We have been working for months to reach these communities,” says Alex Marianelli, who heads WFP operations in Port Sudan.
Behind us, in a WFP warehouse, Sudanese workers sing as they load trucks with boxes of food heading to the worst areas.
Marianelli He says he has never worked in such a difficult and dangerous environment.
Hunger as a weapon of war
Within the humanitarian community, some criticize the UN, saying its hands are tied by recognizing General Burhan as the de facto ruler of Sudan.
“General Burhan and his authorities control those checkpoints and the permit and access system,” Fletcher responds.
“If we want to get into those areas, we have to deal with them.”
He hopes that the FAR will also put people as a priority.
“I’ll go anywhere, talk to anyone, to get this help out there and save lives,” Fletcher adds.
In the merciless war in Sudan, All parties to the conflict have been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war.
The same goes for sexual violence, which the UN describes as “an epidemic” in Sudan.
The UN visit coincided with the “16 Days of Activism,” which is commemorated globally as a campaign to end gender-based violence.
In Port Sudan, the event at a displaced persons camp, the first to be set up when the war broke out, was especially moving.
“We have to do better, we have to do better,” promised Fletcher, who put aside his prepared speech as he stood under a canopy in front of rows of applauding Sudanese women and children.
“We are very tired”
I asked some of the women listening what they thought of this visit.
“We really need help, but most of the work should come from the Sudanese themselves,” reflects Romissa, who works for a local aid group and recounts his own harrowing journey from Khartoum at the start of the war.
“This is the time for the Sudanese people to stand together.”
The Sudanese have been trying to do a lot with a little.
In a simple two-room shelter, a safe house called Shamaa (candle), sheds some light on the lives of abused single women and orphaned children.
Its founder, Nour Hussein al-Sewaty, known as Mama Nour, also began life at the Maygoma orphanage.
He also had to flee Khartoum to protect those in his care. A woman who now takes refuge with her was raped before the war, then kidnapped and raped again.
Even the formidable Mama Nour is now on the brink of collapse.
“We are very tired. We need help,” he declares.
“We want to smell the fresh air. We want to feel that there are still people in the world who care about us, the people of Sudan.”
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