The lack of funds heralds the discontinuation of aid to 1.4 million Sudanese in Chad

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has said that food assistance to some 1.4 million people in Chad, including newly arrived refugees who fled violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, will be halted from January due to lack of funds.

According to Reuters, financial constraints and growing humanitarian needs have already forced WFP to suspend assistance to internally displaced persons and refugees from Nigeria, the Central African Republic and Cameroon from December.

Starting in January, these cuts will expand to those suffering in Chad, the program said in a statement.

More than 540 thousand refugees have crossed into Chad from the Sudan since the outbreak of the war there seven months ago between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary rapid support forces according to the International Organization for Migration.

Many fled Western Darfur, where ethnically motivated violence and mass killings broke out again this month in El Geneina.

Mr. Pierre Honorat, Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Chad, said: “It is confusing, but the number of Darfurians who have fled to Chad in the last six months is greater than in the last 20 years.”

“We cannot allow the world to stand up and let our life-saving operations stop in Chad.”

WFP said it needed $185 million to support those in need in Chad over the next six months.