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UN humanitarians complete first food distribution in Khartoum as hunger, threats to children intensify
For the first time since fighting broke out in Sudan on 15 April, humanitarians have been able to reach desperate families trapped in the conflict’s epicentre, Khartoum, with food assistance, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.
WFP’s Country Director in Sudan, Eddie Rowe, told reporters in Geneva that in a major breakthrough, the agency distributed food assistance to 15,000 people in both Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) controlled areas of Omdurman, part of the Khartoum metropolitan area, since last Saturday.
Speaking from Port Sudan, Mr. Rowe highlighted other recent food distributions, in Wadi Halfa in Northern State to reach 8,000 people fleeing Khartoum and on their way to Egypt, as well as to 4,000 newly displaced people in Port Sudan. In total, WFP has been able to reach 725,000 people across 13 states in the country since it resumed its operations on 3 May, following a pause brought on by the killing of three aid workers at the start of the conflict.
Mr. Rowe said that WFP was rapidly scaling up its support, which they expected to expand depending on progress in negotiations for humanitarian access for all regions, including the Darfurs and Kordofans, strongly impacted by violence and displacement.
In addition to the 16 million Sudanese who were already finding it “very difficult to afford a meal a day” before the fighting started, Mr. Rowe warned that the conflict compounded by the upcoming hunger season could increase the food insecure population by about 2.5 million people in the coming months.
With the lean season was fast approaching, WFP’s plan was to reach 5.9 million people across Sudan over the next six months, he said.
Mr. Rowe stressed that WFP needed a total of $730 million to provide required assistance as well as telecommunications and logistics services to the humanitarian community, including all of the UN agencies operating in Sudan.
He also reiterated the humanitarian community’s call on all parties to the conflict to enable the safe delivery of urgently needed food aid, and deplored that so far, WFP had lost about 17 000 metric tons of food to widespread looting across the country, and particularly in the Darfurs.
Just two days ago, he said, the agency’s main hub in El Obeid, North Kordofan came under threat and looting of assets and vehicles was already confirmed.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that “more children in Sudan today require lifesaving support than ever before”, with 13.6 million children in need of urgent assistance. “That’s more than the entire population of Sweden, of Portugal, of Rwanda,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva.
According to reports received by UNICEF, hundreds of girls and boys have been killed in the fighting. “While we are unable to confirm these due to the intensity of the violence, we also have reports that thousands of children have been maimed,” Mr. Elder said.
He also pointed out that reports of children killed or injured are only those who had contact with a medical facility, meaning that the reality is “no doubt much worse” and compounded by a lack of access to life-saving services including nutrition, safe water, and healthcare.
Mr. Elder alerted that “all these factors combined risk becoming a death sentence, especially for the most vulnerable”.
UNICEF called for funding to the tune of $838 million to address the crisis, an increase of $253 million since the current conflict began in April, to reach 10 million children. Mr. Elder stressed that only 5 per cent of the required amount had been received so far, and that without the therapeutic food and vaccines which this money would allow to secure, children would be dying.
The dire situation of healthcare in the country has been aggravated by continuing attacks on medical facilities. From the start of the conflict on 15 till 25 May, the World Health Organization (WHO) verified 45 attacks on healthcare, which led to eight deaths and 18 injuries, the agency’s spokesperson Tarik Jašarević said.
He also cited reports of military occupation of hospitals and medical supplies warehouses, which made it impossible for people in need to access chronic disease medicines or malaria treatment. Mr. Jašarević recalled that attacks on healthcare are a violation of international humanitarian law and must stop.
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STORY: Sudan Update – WFP – UNICEF - WHO
TRT: 3’09”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH, NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
RELEASE DATE: 30 May 2023
FORMAT: HYBRID PRESS BRIEFING
DATELINE: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot: UN flag alley UN Geneva.
- Cutaway: wide shot, speakers behind podium at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Eddie Rowe, World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director in Sudan: “Our first distribution of food assistance to Khartoum started on Saturday, 27 May, where we were able to provide food assistance to 15,000 Sudanese, both in the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces controlled areas in Omdurman, which is part of the Khartoum metropolitan area.”
- Cutaway: close lateral shot of speakers behind podium at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Eddie Rowe, World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director in Sudan: “Quite apart from the assessed 16 million people who would find it very difficult to afford a meal a day, this conflict compounded by the hunger season would increase the food insecure population by about 2.5 million people, who definitely would slip into the hunger category in the coming months.”
- Cutaway: close shot, journalist writing at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Eddie Rowe, World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director in Sudan: “Unfortunately, so far we've lost about 17,000 metric tonnes of food across the country, but particularly in the Darfurs. Just two days ago, our main hub in El-Obeid is under threat, even though the food has not yet been looted. But we know that our office pre-fabs, our assets and some of our vehicles have already been looted.”
- Cutaway: medium lateral shot, journalists at the press conference, speakers at the podium, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) James Elder, spokesperson, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “More children today in Sudan require lifesaving support than ever before. So we now have a staggering, sobering 13.6 million children in Sudan who urgently require assistance. That's more than the entire population of Sweden, of Portugal, of Rwanda.”
- Cutaway: close lateral shot, journalists at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) James Elder, spokesperson, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “Hundreds of girls and boys have now been killed. And while we're unable to confirm these due to the intensity of the violence, we also have reports that thousands of children have been maimed.”
- Cutaway: close shot, speakers on the screen at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Tarik Jašarević, spokesperson, World Health Organization (WHO): “There are also reports of military occupation of hospitals, but also of medical supplies, of warehouses where medicines are stored for all of the country such as malaria medicines, where we have pharmacies with chronic disease medicines. And this is obviously impacting the possibility for people to reach those treatments that they need.”
- Various cutaways of journalists and speakers in the press conference room.
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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