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00:00 In Sudan, the two warring military factions have agreed to a five-day extension of a ceasefire
00:05 agreement. New heavy clashes and airstrikes in the capital, though, have thrown doubts on the
00:10 effectiveness of the truce that's designed to ease a humanitarian crisis there. The US and Saudi
00:16 Arabia, who brokered the deal, said the ceasefire has not been perfect, but it has allowed the
00:20 delivery of aid to an estimated two million people. Well, to talk more about that with me now,
00:26 let's bring in Mathilde Vu. You are the advocacy manager in Sudan for the Norwegian
00:32 Refugee Council. You're now in Nairobi, but you were in Sudan just before the conflict began.
00:38 What is the humanitarian situation like now in Sudan?
00:40 It's catastrophic. It was really terrible two months ago before this all started,
00:49 and now we're facing really an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. We have something like
00:55 18 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, more than one million people
01:00 displaced, 300,000 across the borders towards Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the likes. And
01:09 honestly, across the country, we keep on seeing people trying to flee Fatoum, and they flee with
01:17 nothing. They flee with trauma, and it's extremely concerning to see how this country is going.
01:24 So what about these comments from the US and Saudi Arabia who say that they have been able
01:29 to deliver aid to some estimated two million people there? Is no aid getting in at all?
01:33 There is aid getting in. It's just not enough. Like my organization, for example, we are right
01:41 now working in White Mile and Gedaref, meaning basically close to the South Sudanese border
01:47 and close to the Ethiopian border. And so we're receiving every day new people fleeing Fatoum,
01:53 sometimes Sudanese and sometimes refugees, because there was a lot of refugees in Fatoum.
01:58 They're now trying to flee again. And the aid that we can give is something, but it's very little
02:05 compared to what the needs are. Like we managed to distribute, for example, food to some of the
02:11 people displaced. We managed to distribute blankets, mattresses, and so on. But I'm talking
02:16 about people who've lost everything, who've seen their homes bombarded, who've seen their schools
02:22 bombarded, who haven't seen a doctor for like weeks, and where basically the entire country
02:29 is seeing like a collapse of everything, every basic services. So the aid is coming. It's coming
02:37 slowly. There is also a lot of logistical issues that are preventing aids from being at scales.
02:44 It's difficult to get supplies into the country. There's been no bank open since basically the 15
02:50 of April. So it means there's no cash inside the country to buy things for us to then, you know,
02:55 deliver assistance. And in general, obviously, there's a lot of parts of the country that are
03:01 completely inaccessible. Fatoum, Darfur, all those places have seen major attacks on civilians
03:07 and conflict, which is right now too dangerous for us to work in. And there's another problem
03:13 as well, I believe, and that is that the weather's about to change. The rainy season is almost here.
03:18 What kind of problems will that bring? It's a crisis within a crisis. Every year,
03:26 Sudan is being exposed to major flooding. And what we expect right now is that basically the
03:33 center, Fatoum, but also the south and the west, so basically the places where people are fleeing
03:39 to and the places where there is major violence are going to have very heavy rain. And when I'm
03:45 talking heavy rains, it's rains that can destroy homes. And a lot of places such as Darfur, for
03:51 example, a lot of people do not have homes anymore. It's been burned down. It's been burned down over
03:55 the past three weeks. They're hiding on the tents right now or on the makeshift shelter.
04:00 These are not going to survive the heavy flooding. And we're talking about also like a lot of
04:08 sanitary risks. There's a lot of risk of cholera or any other disease like this,
04:14 malaria and so on. We're heading towards a very complicated month.
04:19 And you were talking about a problem within a problem in regard to the rainy season. That can
04:25 also be true of the refugee question. There was already a big refugee population inside Sudan
04:30 from other conflicts. What's happening to those refugees now?
04:34 You're right. Actually, it's not really known. Sudan was the second country in Africa hosting
04:41 the largest number of refugees. I think it was close to a million people. And right now,
04:47 these are people who are forced to flee. These are people who went to Sudan, fleeing usually
04:54 extreme violence in South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, for example, trying to find a safe haven
05:00 in Khartoum, and now having to flee again. Some of them are pushed back, I mean, forced back,
05:06 sorry, to the country that they fled. A lot of people are crossing right now onto South Sudan,
05:12 or South Sudanese returnees, who did not plan on coming back. And they have nothing.
05:17 They're already extremely vulnerable. They had already like a very, very difficult living
05:24 condition. And right now, the ones that we're seeing in White Nile, they're living on the
05:30 blankets in the open, like it's 40 degrees during the day. And they're accumulating right now
05:36 towards the border, going back to South Sudan and to a very, very uncertain future.
05:42 Mathilde, thank you for taking the time to speak to us. Mathilde Vue there,
05:45 the advocacy manager for Sudan for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Thank you.