UN Food Chiefs Ousted as Darfur Crisis Deepens

Ce qu’il faut retenir

Khartoum has declared the World Food Programme’s two senior representatives persona non grata and given them seventy-two hours to depart. The move coincides with the Rapid Support Forces seizing el-Fasher after an eighteen-month siege, threatening 24 million Sudanese already classed as acutely food-insecure. Diplomats warn that the expulsions could paralyse relief corridors when they are most needed.

Conflict pressures and humanitarian fallout

Since April 2023 Sudan’s rivalry between the national army and the RSF has shredded supply chains, uprooted eight million people and created what the UN labels the world’s largest displacement crisis. WFP convoys, already hampered by looting and bureaucratic stop-gaps, now face additional uncertainty without senior leadership on the ground, potentially slowing clearances at Port Sudan and cross-border routes from Chad.

El-Fasher’s symbolic weight in Darfur

El-Fasher, historic capital of North Darfur, had been the last army-controlled urban centre in the region. Its fall carries strategic and psychological resonance, echoing the Janjaweed campaigns of the early 2000s. Satellite imagery analysed at Yale University indicates fresh mass-grave clusters near the city’s Saudi Hospital, reinforcing activist testimonies that wounded civilians were executed after the takeover (BBC).

Aid operations caught in geopolitical crossfire

The military government publicly insists cooperation with WFP will continue, yet previous communiqués accused unnamed agencies of amplifying “exaggerated famine narratives”. Observers in Nairobi suggest Khartoum aims to re-assert sovereignty by shaping humanitarian messaging, while also testing whether donors will maintain funding without guaranteed field access. A veteran UN official notes that similar tactics in Myanmar and Ethiopia produced only partial concessions.

Regional and multilateral responses

The African Union Peace and Security Council voiced “grave concern” over el-Fasher, urging an immediate ceasefire and unobstructed aid flow. IGAD mediators are attempting shuttle diplomacy, though RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo remains publicly defiant. The European Union signalled potential sanctions against individual commanders should attacks on non-Arab communities persist, aligning with United States calls for accountability under the Magnitsky framework.

Voices from the ground

A displaced resident who reached Tawila, sixty kilometres west of el-Fasher, told the Sudan Lifeline programme that travellers face indiscriminate gunfire and robbery. Tawila already hosts eight hundred thousand people, overwhelming boreholes and clinics. Poet Emtithal Mahmoud, whose family endured past Darfur atrocities, says social-media footage shows a genocide “live-streamed,” with perpetrators convinced of impunity. Such testimonies are reshaping global public opinion at unprecedented speed.

Historical echoes and legal stakes

Darfur witnessed some of the twenty-first century’s earliest International Criminal Court indictments, yet many warrants remain unenforced. Analysts remark that the RSF, descended from the Janjaweed militia, appears to repeat patterns of ethnic targeting while adeptly utilising online channels to project victory narratives. The expulsion of WFP leaders could complicate evidence-gathering, hindering future prosecutions for starvation crimes codified in international law since 2018.

Scenarios for international engagement

Diplomats outline three broad trajectories. First, Khartoum rescinds the expulsions under donor pressure, restoring a limited but functional aid footprint. Second, the standoff hardens, pushing agencies to operate cross-border from Chad without formal consent, a model used in Syria. Third, sustained obstruction accelerates famine, prompting a Security Council resolution for humanitarian air-and-land corridors, a move Moscow and Beijing may veto.

Implications for regional stability

Chadian authorities, already hosting one million Sudanese refugees, warn that continued fighting near the frontier could spill over, straining N’Djamena’s budget and peace accords. South Sudan fears oil export disruptions along pipelines that transit contested zones. For Central African states within ECCAS, the Sudan crisis diverts peacekeeping resources and complicates joint efforts against Gulf of Guinea piracy, demonstrating the conflict’s multidimensional reach.

What next for humanitarian diplomacy

In the coming weeks, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths is expected to brief the Security Council, advocating for guarantees of safe passage and the reinstatement of WFP personnel. Observers stress that calibrated engagement, rather than public vilification, may offer the best chance of persuading Khartoum to reopen corridors. The cost of delay, measured in preventable hunger and communal violence, rises hourly.