HAMILTON, Canada
The UN on Friday said it requires only 55 cents per day to assist each person in Sudan, where millions face dire humanitarian conditions amid ongoing conflict.
“What we’re asking for is basically 55 cents per day per person in Sudan, and that’s it, right? So where we have access, we’re able to assist; where we have safety and security assurances, we’re able to assist; (and) where we have enough supplies and funding, we’re able to assist,” Edem Wosornu, director of the operations and advocacy division at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said during a virtual briefing from Port Sudan.
Wosornu described Khartoum as “devastating,” calling it “a decimated city, a Khartoum that was once buzzing with life, almost a ghost town, a Khartoum that is utterly destroyed.”
“I have never seen anything like this before in my almost some part of a century of service to the United Nations and humanitarian action in several difficult war-torn contexts; this is the worst I’ve seen it,” she said.
Wosornu noted that Sudan is “the world’s largest crisis,” with 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid, and that funding remains critically low.
“We’ve received 23% of what we’re asking for,” she added.
She also urged “continued funding, for continued advocacy, for the spotlight to be on Sudan,” and emphasized that “there has to be an end to this” conflict, which has “killed, maimed, and led to significant loss of livelihoods and life.”
