Catastrophic flooding and rising food and health costs in Sudan, have driven up the number of people in need, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday. Authorities declared a three-month state of emergency in early September after the worst flooding in 30 years. To date, more than 860,000 people have had houses destroyed or damaged and more than 120 people have died. Some 560 schools and thousands of health facilities have also been affected, compromising essential services to communities, especially in North Darfur, Khartoum, West Darfur, and Sennar, which account for 52 percent of all people affected. The response by UN agencies and partners has reached more than 400,000 people so far, including emergency shelter and essential household items relief to over 181,000 flood-affected refugees, 1.87 million internally displaced people, and Sudanese across the country. Meanwhile, COVID-19 virus transmission has continued, with 13,653 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 836 deaths, according to official data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Amid growing needs, surging inflation — reaching nearly 170 percent in August — has caused a shortage of basic commodities and increased prices of some locally sourced supplies by 300 to 400 percent. "In some cases, by the time the procurement process is finalized, the supplies have increased prices, so that the original budgets are no longer valid", said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke. He explained that this meant the purchasing process had to begin again and "there is no guarantee that by the time that that process is done, that the prices will not have risen once again". Healthcare costs have also increased by up to 90 percent, OCHA Sudan said in a recent tweet. In Geneva, Laerke noted that the price of an average family food basket had increased by over 200 percent since last year, based on World Food Program (WFP) data, increasing pressure on already dramatic levels of food insecurity across Sudan, where 9.6 million people are described as "severely" in need. Inflation has also affected the UN's humanitarian partners which provide cash support to vulnerable families, as they are constantly having to adjust the amounts transferred, Laerke said. Even with these adjustments, many families are no longer able to purchase what they need with the cash received. Today, only one in four families who previously relied on outside assistance now receives it, the OCHA spokesperson said. Another concern in Sudan is that large areas of farmland are underwater or ruined just before harvest. "Most families in Sudan already spent around 65 percent of their income on food, so these price hikes lead to increased hunger and less education, health and other services that families de-prioritize as they try to cope with the economic hardship", Laerke explained. — UN news
