Day: November 8, 2022

Three farmers were killed and another wounded near Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan, on Monday. An army corporal was also shot dead by gunmen in West Kordofan. Witnesses say that video evidence identifies the assailants as members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Abdelrahim Kunda told Radio Dabanga yesterday that three farmers were shot dead, and one was wounded, on the farm they were working near the village of Kega El Kheil west of Kadugli locality in South Kordofan. The assailants remain unknown.

The wounded farmer was transferred to Kadugli for treatment. The bodies of the slain farmers were also transferred to Kadugli for forensic examination.

Kunda also reported that army corporal Hussein El Kheir was killed in Lagawa, West Kordofan, on Monday morning.

He was shot by gunmen when he was walking from his village, Tabaldi Ko, eight kilometres west of the Lagawa army garrison, and died instantly.

The source said that Hussein was part of a team that was helping people to leave the town following attacks by gunmen a few days ago.

“Groups of armed men wearing military uniforms stormed Lagawa and attacked a number of neighbourhoods,” he reported. “Videos of the violence posted on social media indicate that they belong to the Rapid Support Forces.”

Source: Radio Dabanga

Farmers in Sudan’s Northern State warn of the failure of the current agricultural season due to the lack of tools, the lack of inputs of seeds and fertilisers, and the scarcity and high price of fuel.

The Northern State Resistance Committees Coordination said in a statement yesterday that the policies of the Ministry of Finance have doubled electricity tariffs for the agricultural sector. Sale of wheat crops has stagnated as the Ministry of Finance has refused to buy it at a good price, meaning farmers have incurred heavy losses. Unprepared food storage facilities have also led to crop damage.

According to the statement, “these policies aim to destroy the agricultural sector in the state, and threaten farmers with insolvency, which leads them to abandon agriculture and emigrate outside of the state”.

Farmers also fear that the state will take over their abandoned land to sell it to foreign investors. In December 2018, Saudi Arabia and Sudan launched an agricultural partnership to develop agricultural work, attain benefits for Sudanese farmers, and fulfil the needs of Arab citizens.

In August 2020, villagers in El Golid locality in Northern State organised a protest vigil in front of the state government secretariat in Dongola, demanding the restitution of their lands that were taken from them to be turned into foreign investment projects during the 30-year reign of President Omar Al Bashir.

The resistance committees’ statement demanded the formation of new farmers union branches in Northern State “to save the agricultural season from failing and the agricultural sector in the state from collapse”.

Yesterday, AFSA, Africa’s largest civil society organisation representing more than 200 million land workers across the continent, suggested “integrating agroecology into regional and national climate policy spaces.”

Farmers in Sudan are under increased pressure as pests, low sale value of crops, and a lack of workers is pushing impoverished farmers to find other sources of income, said the director of the Ministry of Production and Economic Resources of South Kordofan, Ibrahim Omar Hamouda, in an interview with Radio Dabanga last week.

Last year, the federal Ministry of Finance planned a significant increase in electricity prices for 2022, as it decided to continue with lifting subsidies on consumer goods, in order to meet the demands of the World Bank. In early January 2021, the power tariffs already increased by 500 per cent.

In January, farmers told Radio Dabanga that the increase in electricity prices would affect agriculture in Nile River state and Northern State. They warned authorities of the failure of the current agricultural season if they did not cancel these increases, especially the upcoming wheat harvest, which needs to be irrigated. Sudan is struggling to manage its water resources amidst political turmoil and an economic slump.

Just 3 per cent of international public climate finance goes to food systems, and even less to small-scale producers, according to the Global Alliance for the Future of Food: “Small-scale farmers are doing everything they can to adapt, but they need support and climate finance.”

Source: Radio Dabanga

The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Sudan will rise to 15.8 million next year, equivalent to about a third of the population, which represents an increase of 1.5 million over this year.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) in Sudan said in a report that about 11 million people need emergency assistance to meet life-threatening needs related to critical physical and mental health. An increase of 21 per cent compared to this year.

The report emphasised that the four most important risks identified during the next year are conflict, disasters associated with natural hazards, disease outbreaks, and economic decline.

Half of those in need are concentrated in conflict-affected areas, OCHA reports, while the remaining half are in areas less affected by conflict in the northern, central, and eastern parts of the country.

A joint statement yesterday by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) and more than a dozen international organisations, describes the already dire and deteriorating food security crisis in the eastern Horn of Africa.

Record-breaking levels of acute food insecurity are being recorded across the region, which is currently experiencing a poor start to the ongoing rainy season. Forecasts now indicate a significant likelihood that the March-May 2023 rainy season will also be below-average.

“Global solidarity is urgently needed to help vulnerable communities in the Horn of Africa survive a rapidly unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, driven by the longest and most severe drought in recent history that is expected to continue well into 2023. Humanitarian and development actors must urgently prepare for the continuation of life-saving assistance in response to extremely high humanitarian needs through to next year. The Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia drought response plans are only 50 percent funded despite escalating needs, severely limiting humanitarian agencies’ capacities to respond. More funds are required immediately to save lives before it is too late,” the joint statement says.

In June, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned that the number of food insecure people in Sudan may ‘dramatically increase‘ to unprecedented levels and that the “already alarming food security situation is likely to worsen throughout the lean season in Sudan, which started this month and will last through September”. By September, up to 40 per cent of Sudanese may slip into food insecurity, the WFP and the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) warned.

Rising costs of transport, food, and basic commodities are putting immense pressure on Sudanese consumers, as the Sudanese Pound continues to waiver against major international currencies. Increasing reports of deaths from malnutrition and starvation are filtering through from across the country, confirming a food crisis that has been repeatedly highlighted by aid organisations.

Source: Radio Dabanga