The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is temporarily stopping its operations in Sudan after the killing of three of its employees during the ongoing armed conflict in the North African country, the organization's director Cindy McCain said.
"I am shocked and heartbroken by the tragic death of three WFP staff members on Saturday, April 15, as a result of violence in Kabkabiya, North Darfur province, when they were carrying out their duties to save lives at the forefront of the global food crisis," the WFP director said in a statement.
According to McCain, two more employees of the organization were injured in the same incident.
She pointed out that the UN agency is forced to temporarily suspend all operations in Sudan, while analyzing the changing security situation.
"WFP is committed to helping the Sudanese people facing acute food shortages, but we cannot do our job to save lives if the safety of our teams and partners is not guaranteed," McCain stressed.
The UN official added that in a separate incident, a plane of the UN Humanitarian Aviation Service (UNHAS), which was at the disposal of the runway, received "significant damage." The plane came under fire at Khartoum airport on Saturday.
According to McCain, the parties to the conflict in the country "must come to an agreement that will ensure the safety of humanitarian workers on the ground and allow the delivery of vital humanitarian aid to the people of Sudan to continue." She also demanded "immediate steps to guarantee the safety" of WFP employees.
Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said they took had taken control of the Republic Palace of the Republic (Presidential Palace) in Khartoum, the capital's international airport, as well as an air base in the city of Merowe in the north of the country. The RSF, a paramilitary unit of the Sudanese Armed Forces led by deputy head of Sudan's Sovereign Council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemetti, accused the country's regular army of attacking its base in the capital with "the use of all types of weapons."
The Sudanese army said that the RSF’s statements do not correspond to reality and that all strategic facilities, including the presidential palace, are controlled by the armed forces. The army also noted that RSF troops attacked them first.
The army and the General Security Service of Sudan declared the RSF a "rebel force" and accused them of attacking state and strategic facilities. The head of the Transitional Sovereign Council of Sudan and the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, Abdel Fattah Burhan, issued a decree on the disbandment of the RSF.