KHARTOUM―Even as global donors reduce their aid offerings to war-torn Sudan, the European Union has vowed to provide the African country with humanitarian assistance for “as long as it takes”. On Monday, the EU offered a new 106-million-euro ($124 million) aid package to Sudan at a time when the United Nations has managed to raise only 39 percent of its overall 2017 aid appeal for the country, where millions still live on foreign aid. Some 461,000 refugees have also arrived in Sudan since December 2013 when a brutal civil war erupted in South Sudan, the world’s youngest country formed after it split from the north in 2011. It is all the more essential that aid reaches targeted people, he said, and that Khartoum gives “unrestricted access” to aid workers. Stylianides said EU aid was not distributed through the Sudanese government at all, and the bloc was in fact focusing on how to develop Africa itself.

Source: The Standard October 24, 2017 10:30 UTC