STORY: WFP resumes food assistance in crisis-torn Sudan
DATELINE: June 20, 2023
LENGTH: 0:02:50
LOCATION: Khartoum
CATEGORY: SOCIETY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of people displaced by fighting sheltering in an abandoned poultry farm
2. various of WFP food distribution to people displaced from Khartoum
3. various of a health center in Wad Madani
4. SOUNDBITE (English): MICHAEL DUNFORD, WFP Regional Director
5. various of an improvised refugee camp in Chad
6. various of WFP distribution to refugees in Borota

STORYLINE:

The World Food Programme (WFP) has begun delivering food for hundreds of thousands of hungry people in Sudan, with hopes to expand to more areas despite enormous security challenges, including intense fighting raging in parts of the country.

Even as Sudan's conflict unleashes widespread displacement and hardship, the May-November rainy season promises to make swathes of the country inaccessible, and the imminent lean period between harvests is certain to further intensify food insecurity.

SOUNDBITE (English): MICHAEL DUNFORD, WFP Regional Director
"Sudan today is one of the most complex operations we have globally. We estimate there are 19 million people who are acutely food insecure, another two million displaced inside the country, almost half a million people displaced across the region. Our biggest challenge at the moment is reaching those who need our support. Access across the country, particularly in Darfur is hugely, hugely problematic. WFP has been able to reach over a million people already in 14 of the 18 states but because of insecurity, because of supply chain challenges, because so much of our food has already been looted, we are going to struggle to reach the people who need our support and need it now."

The food is reaching Sudan's most vulnerable: longstanding refugees and displaced people, along with people who have recently fled the ongoing fighting and some of the communities hosting them.

As emergency operations ramp up over the coming months, WFP plans to support nearly 5 million people in Sudan with emergency food assistance and 600,000 children and women with prevention and treatment of malnutrition.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Khartoum.
(XHTV)