According to the World Food Programme, a small convoy of food supplies entered Sudan through a temporarily reopened border crossing with Chad.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), a convoy carrying humanitarian aid has arrived in Sudan’s Darfur region, providing temporary relief after Sudanese forces closed parts of the border with Chad to aid deliveries in February.

The UN special agency announced on Wednesday that more than a dozen trucks had delivered food aid to around 13,000 people threatened by famine in the Kereinik region of western Darfur.

The aid agency added that it has food supplies for 500,000 people. More than six million people in Darfur are affected by food shortages, and more than 25 million people in the country as a whole, or about half the population.

“More than a dozen trucks carrying humanitarian aid – including some from the WFP and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – have now entered Darfur from Chad via the Adre border crossing,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, on Wednesday.

The Adre border crossing from Chad in #Sudan is the most effective and shortest way to deliver humanitarian assistance – particularly to the Darfur region – on the scale and at the speed required to prevent widespread famine.

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— World Food Programme (@WFP) 22 August 2024

This trickle of aid represents only a small portion of the aid available, but it cannot enter the country due to restrictions imposed by the Sudanese army, which claims its rivals in the 16-month-old war are using the route to transport weapons.

In April last year, fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Last week, the army announced it would temporarily reopen the border crossing for three months to allow vital aid to flow into Darfur, where more than six million people are facing food shortages and the UN has declared a famine.

Justin Brady, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, said in a social media post earlier this week that while 131 trucks carrying aid had been approved to enter Sudan, only 15 of them were allowed in before Sudanese authorities stopped the advance.

“The Adre border crossing from Chad to Sudan is the most effective and shortest route to deliver humanitarian assistance – particularly to the Darfur region – at the scale and speed needed to prevent widespread famine,” the WFP said in a social media post on Thursday.

The RSF, which is embroiled in a bitter battle with the Sudanese army that has plunged the country into a mass hunger crisis, welcomed the supplies in a statement on Wednesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) welcomed the opening of the border crossing on Thursday as a “positive first step”, but also called for the opening to be a longer-term measure.

“The three months fall during the rainy season, which of course makes access difficult due to heavy rainfall and flash floods,” the aid organization said in a statement.