"We see the funding decreasing year after year, while we don't see the needs decreasing. On the contrary, the needs are bigger"
By Magdalena Mis
LONDON, April 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A shortage of funds from donors turning to other crises may force UNICEF to make drastic cuts in its humanitarian aid to Sudan, although displaced people there need more help, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
UNICEF has received only 13 percent of the $130 million it sought to fund its operations in Sudan in 2016, and if no new funding comes in, its health, education, nutrition and other services will be hit, the agency's Sudan representative said.
"You have a major crisis out there but you make the call for that crisis and you have the feeling sitting in Khartoum that nobody is interested any more," Geert Cappelaere told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.
"We see the funding decreasing year after year, while we don't see the needs decreasing. On the contrary, the needs are bigger," Cappelaere said.
"If no new funding comes in we'll have to start drastically reducing our assistance ... because there is simply no money any more to help the people of Sudan."
Sudan has been at war for decades, with impoverished border regions clashing with Khartoum for more political power and a greater share in the country's wealth.
Some 300,000 people have been killed in western Darfur region since the conflict flared in 2003, while 4.4 million people need aid and more than 2.5 million have been displaced, the United Nations says.
Violence has lessened in recent years, but the insurgency continues and Khartoum has increased its attacks on rebels over the past year. At least 130,000 people have fled fighting in the central Jebel Marra area since mid-January.
Up to 80 percent of those displaced are children, who are severely distressed by the threat of more conflict, Cappelaere said. "Children have only one plea to the government and the rebel groups, and that is for the war to stop."
The living conditions of the tens of thousands of people displaced by the recent fighting in Jebel Marra are dire, Cappelaere said.
Some 25,000 people fled to an area in northern Darfur where there was "nothing" and the agency had great difficulty at first providing the minimum of 15 litres of water per person per day.
The temperature is expected to rise to 45 Celsius (113°F) in the summer, exposing people with little shelter to intense heat.
"It's very difficult to keep the international community, the donors, focused on Sudan because of so many other competing crises in the world," Cappelaere said. (Reporting by Magdalena Mis, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
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