GENEVA: The humanitarian situation in the Sudanese city of El-Obeid is worsening rapidly, the United Nations said Friday, as displacement camps swelled with new arrivals.
The UN has been warning for weeks that atrocities similar to those committed during the paramilitary assault on the Darfur city of El-Fasher in October last year could be repeated in El-Obeid.
The UN’s World Food Programme said El-Obeid’s population had all but doubled, though it was only able to feed a fraction of them.
“The city continues to be stressed on food, water and fuel,” said Abdallah Alwardat, WFP’s Sudan country director, after visiting El-Obeid on Thursday.
“What we have seen, simply: a city over 500,000-600,000 population has almost double” that number due to internally displaced persons (IDPs) moving in from the wider Kordofan region, he told reporters in Geneva.
