Attachments
Highlights
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A total of 125,837 vulnerable individuals including Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and South Sudanese Refugees (SSR) received life-saving integrated health and nutrition services.
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The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, visited Sudan in May. He urged the international community to step up humanitarian response to 7.1 million vulnerable people and invest in the country’s social-economic development, expressing particular concern for women and children, and the need to protect them.
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UNICEF with the support of the North and East Darfur states Ministry of Education, registered 2,359 children for basic education of whom 979 are IDPs and host community from North Darfur, and 1,380 refugee children from East Darfur.
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The Government of Sudan has endorsed the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) UNICEF-supported study in 2015, on recruitment and association of children with armed forces and groups including in armed tribal conflict.
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The economic situation caused major disruptions in the delivery of basic services including in health care, education and water and sanitation services.
The Government’s annual national immunisation campaign was postponed due to the lack of fuel for transportation, as well as the supported Polio campaign and the Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) screening campaign.
Situation Overview and Humanitarian Needs
In May, the economic situation has caused some major disruption in the delivery of basic services including in health care, education and water and sanitation services. The Government’s annual national immunisation campaign has been postponed due to the lack of fuel for transportation. This is also the same reason for the delay in both the supported Government Polio campaign and the Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) screening campaign. Fuel shortages have affected UNICEF and partners’ operations and programmes in many parts of the country, and particularly increased the potential for essential medicines and ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) stock-out and delivery coverage in different health sites.
In White Nile, the water supply situation, especially in the South Sudanese Refugee camps, is of major concern to UNICEF and partners and bodes significant threats of potential outbreaks. In Southern Kordofan, the rainy season has started and is expected to cause access difficulties especially to the deep field locations such as El-lliri, Abu Jabiha, Abbasiya (refugees in South Kordofan) and El-Meram, Kharasan, (refugees in West Kordofan), Abyei locality and other locations. UNICEF is undertaking a pre-positing of essential supplies in different states to ensure a timely response.
The humanitarian situation in the newly accessible areas in east and north Jebel Marra region in South and Central Darfur, remains complex. Humanitarian needs across North Darfur remains also critical in hotspot areas (Sortoni, Alliet) as well as in protracted and returnee areas - Fuel scarcity has limited partners’ capacity to undertake regular functions including monitoring and supervision. Cost of transporting supplies to some localities has doubled during the month of May. In Alliet, important gaps in health care services to cover around 11,000 South Sudanese Refugees SSR and host communities have been reported. A joint mission conducted by UNICEF, State Ministry of Health (SMOH) and Child Development Organization (CDO) in May revealed several issues including shortage of essential medicine, disrupted referral system of severe cases to secondary care level and poor WASH conditions. UNICEF-led Education response to the refugees’ situation in Alliet is progressing well, however, key bottlenecks are the lack of school feeding and lack of teacher incentives for the teachers.
In response to the deteriorating situation, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and the African Development Bank (AFDB) are undertaking a joint assessment on the impact of the economic crisis, with an initial focus on families and children living in urban cities and towns. UNICEF is also participating in a joint effort by donors, the UN, World Bank and others exploring the possibility of setting up a social impact mitigation facility that would allow the Government to carry out the macroeconomic reforms needed to stabilise the economy, while mitigating the short-term impact of the reforms. Moreover, UNICEF is supporting the newly established Commission on Poverty Reduction and Ministry of Social Security and Development to look at possible mitigation measures, including scale up of cash transfers and national health insurance schemes, which would allow families with children to avoid coping strategies that have long-term adverse consequences for children.
In May, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, visited Sudan and undertook a visit to the settlements for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Murta and Kulba in South Kordofan. During his three-day stay in the country, the Humanitarian Chief urged the international community to step up support to the humanitarian response to 7.1 million vulnerable people 6 and invest in the country’s social-economic development. He also expressed particular concern for women and children and the need to protect them. Another key point Mr. Lowcock underlined is the necessity to scale up support for longer-term development to help Sudan move beyond recurrent cycles of emergency assistance, thus help to build its population resilience.