On April 15, one year after the conflict in Sudan, a high-level meeting was held in Paris with the participation of the European Union, France and Germany. The objective of this meeting, which I attended representing Action Against Hunger, was to address the acute humanitarian crisis in Sudan, as well as the financial and access challenges we face in continuing to develop humanitarian aid in the country.
Sudan faces an extremely complex context. Almost 18 million people, a third of its population, suffer acute food insecurity due to a conflict that has generated the largest displaced people crisis in the world: eight million since April 2023. Action Against Hunger operates in Sudan, together with partners local, distributing agricultural inputs, treating and preventing malnutrition in 44 health centers and providing water, sanitation and hygiene programs. Although we have helped almost half a million people in the last year, the situation remains extremely difficult.
The conflict in Sudan is also a gender conflict. Women and girls face an increased risk of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, by being attacked or harassed when trying to access markets, fields or humanitarian aid distribution sites. Rising food insecurity and displacement are forcing women to resort to survival sex for food and are also leading to an increase in early and forced marriages.
Sudan is just a reflection of how the environment in which humanitarian organizations operate has become increasingly complex due to the proliferation of conflicts in the world. In 2023 alone there were 110 active conflicts. In this context, risk assessment has become essential in our operations. This includes the safety of our staff (last year 444 humanitarian workers were victims of violence, including the death of our colleague Adama Mourouel in the Gao region of Mali) and also the need to provide additional resources to continue carrying out our mission. in complicated and dangerous environments.
Growing food insecurity and displacement force women to resort to survival sex for food and increase early and forced marriages
Operating in conflict zones also implies other challenges: managing the difficulty of access to the population, obtaining visas for our expatriates who go to work in the field or having the possibility of having cash that allows us to acquire humanitarian materials and pay personnel. local. It is also essential to maintain a neutral relationship with the parties involved in the conflict to carry out a humanitarian response. It is not always easy for our teams to maintain impartiality in the face of abuse, injustice and inequalities, but it is the best guarantee of being able to continue helping the people who need us.
In Gaza, Action Against Hunger, together with Doctors Without Borders, is the only Spanish humanitarian organization with an emergency team made up of expatriate personnel. In this small territory, almost two million people face extreme conditions for their survival. Our ability to develop a humanitarian response in contexts as complex as Gaza is due to more than 20 years of work in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. During this time, we have established a network of local partners that allows us to activate a food supply chain and have peoplel in situ to channel humanitarian aid. Since the conflict began, we have provided assistance to more than 800,000 people in Gaza, distributing food, water, hygiene kits, and waste management and cleaning services.
Currently, of the 50 countries in which we operate, 28 are experiencing conflict. In the African Sahel region, where we are present in most countries, conflicts and hunger create vicious circles that are difficult to address. At a recent meeting of journalists in Córdoba, the presence of Africa in the media and the way to report on what is happening on the continent was discussed. Important questions arose: how is Africa counted today? Do we know the relationship between conflicts and hunger that affect these countries? A key conclusion was the need to improve the quality and quantity of media coverage, to understand the causes and consequences of conflicts and crises caused by hunger on the continent. Among other reasons, because within 30 years, one in four people in the world will be African.
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