Today's top news: Myanmar, Sudan

A mother and child handed a micronutrient supplement

World Vision staff, Saw James, hands packages of micronutrient supplement powder for 8-month-old baby Aung Ko Ko Shine and his mother Ma Cho Cho, as part of Nourish Delta, a community-based programme to treat acute malnutrition supported by UNICEF, in Ayarwaddy Region, Myanmar UNICEF Myanmar/ Minzayar Oo

Myanmar

Local communities and humanitarian organizations are preparing for the arrival of Cyclone Mocha.

The cyclone is predicted to make landfall this weekend and is forecast to hit the coastline between Kyaukphyu in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh on Sunday, local time.

The area that could be impacted in Rakhine is low-lying and highly prone to flooding. Heavy rains and strong winds are also expected to hit inland communities, which are also prone to landslides and flooding.

We and our partners activated the Myanmar Humanitarian Emergency Response Preparedness Plan nationwide earlier this week. Aid organizations have pre-positioned staff and supplies wherever possible.

Across Rakhine and the north-west, some six million people are already in need of humanitarian assistance, while 1.2 million people displaced.

The US$764 million Humanitarian Response Plan for Myanmar is severely underfunded at only 10 per cent.

Sudan

Our humanitarian partners continue to scale up our response, despite the violence.

The World Food Programme has reached some 50,000 people in the states of Kassala, Gedaref and White Nile with food assistance.

For its part, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is bringing in therapeutic food in response to the malnutrition crisis in Sudan. This includes 34,000 cartons of aid which is being shipped from France.

These supplies are especially urgent following a fire which destroyed a factory in Khartoum. This facility produced therapeutic food for children suffering from the most dangerous form of malnutrition.

UNICEF says the fire completely destroyed the factory’s machinery, as well as supplies to treat some 14,500 malnourished children.

As the violence continues in Sudan, UNICEF estimates that at least 450,000 children have been forced to flee their homes – this includes some 368,000 who are internally displaced and 82,000 who have fled to neighbouring countries.

For its part, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warns that the situation is critical, with the humanitarian response significantly underfunded in Sudan and some of its neighbors: Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

UNHCR has deployed teams and is rushing to deliver aid with its partners, but ramping up its operations will urgently require more funding.

UNHCR says some 200,000 people have fled the conflict in Sudan so far.