LOC12:28
09:28 GMT
News report by Mohammad Abdulaziz
KHARTOUM, Nov 30 (KUNA) -- Through its persistent humanitarian aid, Kuwait is seeking to alleviate the woes and anguish of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the town of Tawila in Sudan's western Darfur region.
Hundreds of IDPs have flooded en mass to Tawila since the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of the city of Al-Fasher, the capital of Sudan's North Darfur state, last month.
This came after an 18-month siege that cut residents off from food, medicine and other critical supplies.
Tawila Town, which is 60 km west of Al-Fasher, has received nearly 379,000 IDPs only since April 2025, taking the total number of IDPs in the town up to 700,000 since the RSF seized Al-Fasher.
With hundreds of families still flowing to the town, Tawila has been locked in a severe shortage of water, food and health services.
Amid this serious humanitarian crisis in Sudan in general and Tawila in particular, Kuwait is trying hard to ease relevant impacts by sending continued humanitarian assistance involving foodstuff and medicine.
In this context, the Kuwait Patients Helping Fund Society has recently stepped up its field activities in this Sudanese town in a move that is intended to bridge the pressing food and health gap.
Speaking to KUNA, the society's Executive Director Dr. Abdulmajeed Fadhlallah said its medical teams have recently carried out a series of urgent interventions, including field clinics for primary care, check-up, psychological support, health awareness and early detection of chronic diseases, along with medical and preventive food distribution.
He added that the Kuwaiti charity's teams have also tried to protect women and girls from violence hazards based on social gender, and to send emergency cases to Tawila Hospital.
The society's office has moved to Tawila, where it has already set up a field medical station, since the RSF took control of Al-Fasher.
The town is now home to as many as 700,000 IDPs, 21 percent of whom are living in refugee camps and 74 percent in random settlements and open areas.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that the recent escalation of violence in Al Fasher, North Darfur, had forced thousands of children and families to flee their homes.
It said in a press release that after days under siege and a long, harrowing journey to safety, families were arriving in Tawila in extremely desperate conditions, warning that many children and adults are malnourished, exhausted, and arrive with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing.
The UN agency underlined that families urgently need shelter, food, clean water, and lifesaving health services.
UNICEF's Representative in Sudan Sheldon Yett described the children arriving in the camp as "bewildered, malnourished and dehydrated."
"The issue is the extreme violence that many of these children witnessed is just astounding to me. Seeing their mothers disappear and, in some cases, family members are being shot," he said.
UN relief chief Tom Fletcher said the suffering of internally displaced persons in northern Darfur is "indescribable", noting that children made up more than 50 percent of people who had fled violence in Al-Fasher.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated the number of those who had fled violence in Al-Fasher and nearby villages after the RSF's control at more than 990,000.
It also warned that 98 percent of refugee families in the town of Tawila require basic sleeping tools, like mats, and shelter because many are forced to sleep outdoors without protection.
The Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA), a non-profit organization founded to support Sudanese-descent physicians and provide humanitarian medical aid in Sudan, cautioned that Tawila had received an alarmingly increasing number of refugees since April 2025.
Speaking to KUNA, Ibrahim Yaqoub, the SAPA's project coordinator,said that more than 80,000 people have arrived in Tawila since the RSF seized Al-Flasher.
He added that the town is widely considered one of the fastest-growing areas for internally displaced persons globally due to the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
The SAPA cautioned that 45 percent of under-five-year-old children are suffering from malnutrition, but this figure skyrockets to 70 percent in outlying areas.
It also warned that most refugee families are locked in an acute food shortage and in dire need of clean water and medical care.
The Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA) sounded the alarm that the situation in Tawila is likely to explode unless the international community moves to save the aggravating humanitarian situation there. (end)
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