Attachments
Highlights
• On 15 June, the ETC added two new sites to its data connectivity network in Port Sudan – UNHCR’s office and the Welthungerhilfe shared I/NGO office. Satellite internet services are being provided to humanitarians from 17 UN agencies and seven I/NGOs across eight sites in the city.
• Two satellite connectivity kits have been installed in Kassala and Al Gedarif in preparation for the expansion of ETC services to the new locations.
• In order to coordinate the provision of radio programming and training, the cluster is conducting an inventory of VHF handsets amongst UN agencies and I/NGOs in Port Sudan.
Situation overview
Conflict
Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed hundreds, forced more than 470,000 to flee across borders, and displaced over 1,670,000 people internally since the start of the conflict according to the UNHCR’s operational data portal.
Prior to the recent outbreak of violence, a third of the population was already in need of humanitarian assistance. Since then, the conflict has dramatically constrained access to food, water, fuel, cash and health care.
In the revised Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) it is now estimated that the number of people in need of assistance is 24.7 million – a 57 per cent increase from before the crisis.
Telecommunications infrastructure
Since the outbreak of conflict on 15 April, Sudan’s communications infrastructure has been heavily impacted as a result of direct damage to telecommunications towers, as well as indirectly through the rapid deterioration of the national power grid.
Two of the country’s three Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are no longer operational. Congestion on the one remaining MNO network is worsened by the concentration of internally displaced people (IDPs) in safer areas away from the active fighting. On 04 June, there was a prolonged outage of the one functioning Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in Port Sudan. Two of the major internet service providers (ISPs) are also no longer functioning, and local VSAT services are unreliable.
UNDSS maintains a VHF radio network that remains operational in most locations across the country, with the exception of El Geneina and Nyala, which were affected by looting.
The extensive looting of communications assets across the country means that there is a clear need to rebuild and strengthen common humanitarian information and telecommunication technology infrastructure to enable a swift and coordinated response to the crisis.
See the Sudan ICT Profile for more information on national telecommunications infrastructure.