After meeting with Sudan’s competing military chiefs, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths cautioned that the “desire to stop the combat still was not there”.
Griffiths warned the BBC that Sudan’s plunge into bloodshed was dangerously close. He demanded security guarantees from the warring parties to enable humanitarian assistance.
The UN predicted that hundreds of thousands of Sudanese may escape the conflict.
Griffiths openly said “the harsh existential reality that people at war are determined to keep it going” in a BBC interview hours after visiting Port Sudan.
He spoke to Sudan’s opposing generals while at Sudan’s main port, now a humanitarian hotspot.
Griffiths, the UN’s top humanitarian official, demanded public guarantees of immediate assistance supplies. “This is about particular security for assistance personnel and products and supplies — travelling along highways at certain times, airlifts from being shot down,” he stressed.
Since the conflict started on 15 April, over 12,000 individuals have arrived in Metema, the border town between Sudan and Ethiopia, many fatigued following the long and risky trip to safety, according to the IOM.
Around 1,000 Sudanese, returning Ethiopians, and third-country nationals (TCNs) from Türkiye, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria, and more than 50 other countries arrive daily at IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM).
IOM is helping Ethiopian arrivals, including from embassies that requested assistance.
Some are accommodated at IOM Transit Centres and transported from the border to Gondar and Addis Ababa. Many Sudanese refugees arrive in Ethiopia destitute and might be stuck in a distant border town without help.
Approximately 200 Kenyans, some students, 200 Ugandans, and 800 Somalis have been helped.
The Federal Government claims that four planes could evacuate all Nigerians in Sudan. The first batch of Nigerians stuck in Sudan arrived in Abuja on Wednesday night after days of attempting to flee conflict.
Nigerian authorities say the evacuation plan covers more than 3,500 citizens, while more than 5,000 Nigerians are thought to be in Sudan, many of them students.
Air Peace, a Nigerian commercial airline, landed in Abuja with 260 passengers around 11:40 p.m. yesterday, followed by a Nigerian Air Force jet with 94 passengers.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), claimed four planes can bring every Nigerian trapped in Sudan home.
While waiting for the two Egyptian planes at Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, she said this.
She added that 3,000 more Nigerians were likely to return home if four planes could fly simultaneously.
Egypt officials are demanding that Nigerian planes be permitted to evacuate the amount of Nigerians available, according to Dabiri-Erewa.
She responded, “If four aircraft fly at once, they will bring everybody back.” We hope they return quickly.
“We expect more planes with NEMA’s arrangements since Egypt makes it tough.
“Egypt says nobody will go if you bring 200 passengers and the plane can only transport 150.
“They want you to choose the quantity of individuals you bring into their boundaries.” We’re attempting to secure tickets to Port Sudan, which is extremely harder to get to but has an airline.
“So they are processing them now to obtain tickets, and then they come home. Other airlines will promptly evacuate them if they acquire the landing authorization.
“At least they are coming back home, and we are grateful no one was killed, and priority was given to students, ladies, and children. She responded, “Let’s just focus on that.”
Returnees describe ordeals
Last night’s Nigerians said they suffered. A returning female student told the media they were humiliated and slept outside. “We spent everything.” We were starving and thirsty, and they harassed us sexually.
There was no food or water. She replied, “We chose goods from shops and went away.”
The BBC Hausa Service reported that another female student’s legs were swelled after frequent bus rides.
