Attacks by Houthi forces against ships in the Red Sea are holding up shipments of vital aid to Sudan and driving up costs for cash-strapped humanitarian agencies in the east African country, where conflict has put millions at risk of famine.
The attacks mean ships carrying aid from Asia to Port Sudan must now circumnavigate Africa, traverse the Mediterranean and then enter the Red Sea via the Suez Canal from the north, resulting in huge delays and increased costs.
“It’s making our operations very expensive,” said Eatizaz Yousif, Sudan country director for the International Rescue Committee. “Shipments that took one or two weeks, maximum, now take months to reach us.”
Fighting since April between rival military factions has devastated Sudan. Half of the country’s population of 48 million requires urgent food aid and nearly 8 million people have been forced to flee their homes, prompting the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
Aid groups responding to the crisis were already grappling with insecurity, crippling funding shortages and bureaucratic hurdles when the Iran-backed Houthis started attacking Red Sea ships in November, demanding an end to Israel’s Gaza offensive.
Smaller shipments of aid are being disembarked at ports in the United Arab Emirates, driven across Saudi Arabia and then shipped to Sudan from Jeddah, a route that avoids the Yemeni coast. Other aid is being flown in from Kenya or driven across the Egyptian border.
All these routes take longer, cost far more and involve greater quantities of red tape than shipping supplies directly to Port Sudan, the main hub for aid agencies in the country, said Omer Sharfy, the local head of supply chain management for Save the Children.
“The Houthi issue has completely choked the market,” Sharfy said. “Medical consumables are very scarce.”
The closure of the Red Sea meant a shipment of life-saving nutritional supplies, due to be distributed by Save the Children in late November, only arrived in January, said Sharfy.
Another major aid group, which declined to be named for security reasons, said it was still waiting for two shipments of insulin and other medicines.
These supplies were supposed to reach beneficiaries in January but are stuck in Dubai. The organisation is facing air-freight costs of $160,000 (£127,000) to transport its next batch of medicines, compared with the $20,000 it previously cost to ship them by sea.
Children are already dying of hunger and preventable illnesses in Sudan’s western Darfur region, where fighting and banditry are hindering humanitarian access. Aid workers fear the coming months will bring mass starvation to much of Sudan.
The Red Sea crisis is making it even harder to respond, said Kashif Shafique, the Sudan head of Relief International, who described the situation as “catastrophic”.
“There’s additional costs and delays,” said Shafique. “But right now, with the situation we are facing on the ground, we need immediate action to move supplies.”
