Hommam Al Nassim 
Chad declared a food emergency across its territory, by decree issued on Friday as more than half a million refugees poured in in 10 months fleeing the war in Sudan.
The decree, issued by Chad’s interim president, Mohamed Idriss Deby, did not include details of emergency measures or the number of people involved, but the U.N. World Food Programme warned in November of an “imminent halt” of its assistance in the face of the influx of Sudanese refugees if it did not receive the necessary international funding.
The World Food Programme provides food assistance to approximately 1.4 million people in Chad, including internally displaced persons and refugees in the semi-arid country in Central Africa. This is a result of ongoing conflicts both locally and regionally in Sudan, Central Africa, Niger, Nigeria, Libya, and Cameroon.
Since the start of clashes in Sudan on April 15, 2023, between the army led by the President of the Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (Hemedti), about 547,000 new refugees have arrived in Chad, according to the latest figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in early February.
Overall, Chad, ranked by the United Nations as the second least developed country in the world, has to deal with more than one million and 570,000 “people in a situation of forced displacement.”
The UN had previously said that the World Food Programme would be forced to suspend its assistance to displaced people and refugees from Nigeria, Central Africa, and Cameroon, due to insufficient funding, and from January 2024, this suspension will be extended to include especially new refugees from Sudan who will not receive food.