In #Sudan over the past four months, thousands of civilians have been killed; within this, many aid workers have also died, including two of our own. Many aid workers—perhaps a third of our team—are also displaced from the horrendous violence too: airstrikes, pillaging, rape, systematic ethnic killings, urban warfare, wanton destruction. Spending the last few months with our ongoing operations inside Sudan, I saw daily and firsthand the dedication and professionalism of hundreds of our field staff whom have directly provided relief to over 70,000 people so far who suddenly fled from Khartoum (cash, education, shelter, sanitation). The suffering here is immense, but the resolve of responders is too—some of our field staff, themselves displaced from Darfur or Khartoum, are working long hard days on emergency response efforts, might have had or even seen family members killed, or haven’t heard from their families for weeks, or have lost their homes and all their belongings, but are still striving for the survival and dignity of people affected by these crises. Their resolve in the face of such uncertainties and personal pressures—like thousands of others from grassroots networks, NGOs, UN, and donors—is one of the most understated and remarkable aspects of this crisis. Today is #WHD2023 worldhumanitarianday.org, mostly a day to commemorate aid workers who died. But for me it’s a day just as much to honour the living as it is the dead, although it’s not a celebration as such—who can celebrate in these wartime circumstances. It’s a day really to push for better safety of all civilians in Sudan, including aid workers—and this requires secure access commitments from all sides in this brutal conflict, so all responders can deliver aid to millions in need, #NoMatterWhat In the past, we’ve pushed for improving common safety services for the wider NGO community in Sudan, and invested in enhanced safety trainings for hundreds of our Sudanese staff, and from today and in the year ahead we’ll redouble this commitment and explore how grassroots responders around the country can be better supported in the face of these huge conflict risks.

Our shipment of 1000 family tents: imported into Port #Sudan, cleared, dispatched yonder, now offloaded into different field warehouses, and soon to be distributed to #displaced families in the coming days. Grateful to 🇸🇪 @Sida for this particular shipment, but for all our donor partners that supported international deliveries of 20,000 shelter and hygiene kits/items, including 🇳🇴 @NorwayMFA,🇨🇭@SwissDevCoop, and 🇺🇸 @USAIDSudan, as well as other donors supporting our overall rapid response efforts 🇪🇺 @eu_echo and 🇩🇪 @GermanyDiplo. Grateful for @UNOCHA_Sudan’s #humanitarian fund for also now extending our temporary #shelter programme too. Immensely grateful for the locally-led efforts that have opened and voluntarily maintain collective shelters for families displaced from #Khartoum, and continue to play a crucial role in providing relief. Millions of displaced families are also hosted elsewhere in the communities. Coordinating humanitarian #logistics is one way in which aid organisations decrease costs, improve response times, and can scale up in an agile way despite unpredictable demands. The ‘logs’ system is just one part of an effective, efficient, large-scale humanitarian response. Grateful to @WFP_Sudan for sharing quick rotation warehouse space on this occasion/location, and @UNHCRinSudan for overall coordination in the Shelter response. The aid community—after the capital was bombed and sacked and initially so many of our central warehouses looted, the banking system collapse, damage and destruction of national factories and industries—has had to rapidly reconfigure a humanitarian #supply chain to meet the immense needs in a complex and volatile operational environment. Important that both ‘in-kind’ items and cash & markets-based approaches to getting aid resources in and stimulating local economic systems are both scaled up at this point in time, for millions of people across this neglected mega-crisis. – at Sudan