DUBAI // The first of nine flights carrying tonnes of sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets, buckets and other essential items for up to 100,000 displaced people in South Sudan left the UAE yesterday.
The United Nations’ refugee agency will send more than Dh9 million of aid from its emergency stockpile in Dubai to Juba within 10 days.
“The arrival of these essential non-food items will enable us to distribute critical supplies to survivors of violence, mostly in Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei,” said Cosmas Chanda, the UNHCR’s representative in South Sudan.
“More than 500,000 are displaced in these states and we need to reach them before the onset of the rainy season.”
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 but has been rocked by ethnic conflicts. A power struggle broke out between president Salva Kiir Mayardit and former vice president Riek Machar, backed by rebels, in December.
The fighting forced more than a million people to flee their homes.
The UN says about 818,000 are displaced throughout the country, including 70,000 in the agency’s camps. About 280,000 others have crossed into Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda.
“Terrified populations are being left without basic household items as they are forced to flee violence, often on multiple occasions, leaving them exposed to the elements without the ability to keep warm, cook or maintain basic standards of hygiene,” Mr Chanda said.
About 256 tonnes of aid will be sent in the next 10 days from the Dubai stockpile.
It will be distributed to displaced people in Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei.
These are not the first aid flights to South Sudan this year. UNHCR has already sent aid to 75,000 people, and a consignment for 10,000 people was flown to Malakal.
The refugee agency’s stockpile in Dubai, which was set up in 2006 at International Humanitarian City, has been a vital point for quickly sending assistance to conflict-hit countries in the region and beyond.
The UNHCR’s warehouses in the emirate hold half of its total emergency response capacity. They can cater to the basic needs of as many as 350,000 people at a time.
Assistance to countries in crisis has doubled in the past year, with about 103 shipments sent to more than 36 nations, compared with 22 in 2012.
Several shipments were made last year to help those caught up in the conflict in Syria and Central African Republic, as well as natural disasters in the Philippines.
So far this year, 226 containers and 11 trucks have been sent to Syria, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Jordan, Central African Republic and South Sudan.
One of the largest shipments was sent to help 200,000 Syrian refugees in February. They received 43 containers including tens of thousands of sleeping mats, kitchen equipment, jerry-cans, thermal blankets and plastic tarpaulins.
About 840,000 refugees in seven countries have benefitted from aid sent from Dubai in the first four months of this year.
pkannan@thenational.ae
