A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster
Clashes between government forces and armed movements in the Darfur region of Sudan has intensified in recent years severely impacting civilians. Inter-tribal tensions continued to spill over into clashes, causing displacement of civilians and disruption of basic services. Access to areas of active clashes remains largely restricted. Continued and sustained clashes 2014 and 2015 witnessed new displacements in the region and, as a result an increase in the humanitarian needs.
Clashes in Darfur due to inter-tribal fighting continued throughout 2015 making the conflict in the region more widespread and unpredictable. Towards the end of the year, increased clashes between farmers and herdsmen were also reported due to poor grazing lands caused by the low rains. Farmers in both North and South Darfur have been affected by the attacks and the destruction of their farms by herders’ livestock.
Lack of rain or shortage of rainfall is also reported to be affecting agriculture in the area.
At the end of 2014, approximately 3.1 million people in Sudan were internally displaced, the majority in Darfur. A further 0.7 million people were refugees displaced from their country of origin or South Sudanese who are unable to move to South Sudan. Since January 2015, up to 224,000 people have been displaced from their homes by conflict in Darfur. About 100,000 of these Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) remain displaced, while 66,000 reside in areas where humanitarian organisations have limited or no access (majority in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur). About 58,000 of the people displaced this year have returned to their area of origin.
Immediate needs of the displaced identified according to inter-agency assessments are food, emergency shelter and household supplies, water, sanitation, health, education and protection services.
According to the Ministry of Health (MoH), as of 11 December 2015, a total of 571 suspected dengue fever cases, including 133 deaths, were reported in Sudan since the outbreak started. Darfur states were the most affected, Kassala and Kordofan being the other affected regions. Earlier during the year, an outbreak of measles was declared in the country. The outbreak began late in December 2014 and affected Kassala and Gedaref States by January 2015. In April, the outbreak was reported in Sennar, the Red Sea, and West, East, and North Darfur states. A total of 52 localities in of South, North, East, and Central Darfur were affected. Darfur states were among the worst affected due to outbreak of Measles and outbreak of dengue fever and malaria during the second half of the year in Sudan.
On 20 May 2015, the IFRC launched an Emergency Appeal (EA), which sought CHF 3,934,859 to support the Sudan Red Crescent Society (SRCS) address the emergency health, hygiene promotion, water and sanitation, emergency shelter including basic household item needs of 389,930 in the Darfur region, for a period of 12 months. The IFRC released CHF 178,890 from the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) as a “startup” loan to the EA, as well as goods in kind, which had been prepositioned in country following the MDRSS021 Floods operation in 2014/2015.
The IFRC, on behalf of the Sudan Red Crescent Society would like to extend many thanks to the American Red Cross, Japanese Red Cross, Saudi Red Crescent Authority and Swedish Red Cross Canadian Red Cross, for their generous financial and in kind contributions to this operation. A total of 3,025 jerry cans from American Red Cross and 2,500 NFI kits from IFRC stocks were made available for response. In addition, although not a contribution to the EA, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) made an important contribution of 3,000 NFI kits to SRCS to be pre-positioned for response in Darfur.
Unfortunately financial coverage for the Emergency Plan of Action remains low at around 14%, mostly due to the protracted nature of the emergency. This Operations Update provides indication of the intention to revise the MDRSD022 EA based on the priorities within the Emergency Plan of Action (EPoA), current resources available, and anticipated income over the remainder of the timeframe of the operation.