ROME (AP) — The World Food Program needs better access to people at risk of starvation in Sudan and more money from the crisis-weary West to feed more than 25 million people facing acute hunger, the U.N. agency's director said Thursday.
“Sudan’s nearly a forgotten crisis right now,” WFP director Cindy McCain told The Associated Press.
“There are so many crises going on that people kind of just, you know, it’s just too much and their eyes glaze over,'' she added.
Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to Darfur and other regions. Some 10 million have been internally displaced and the country is engulfed in a humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands of people have died in fighting.
While WFP has designated points of entry to bring aid to the hungry, the onset of the rainy season means trucks have difficulty reaching the Zamzam camp, home to more than 400,000 displaced people, that was declared to have crossed the famine thresholds last February.
“It’s taken our trucks almost two weeks to get in there,” McCain explained, “Bridges are washed out. Roads are washed out. It’s a really it’s a combination of really tragic situations.”
“We need to get in there at scale,” McCain said, “And we need to make sure that the world understands the need and what is at stake if we don’t.”
WFP has been coping with a lack of funding as donor fatigue set in after the pandemic. The organization is trying to compensate by developing new technologies for predicting weather and providing food in emergencies.
“We have to we have to do more with less. We have to be more efficient, more effective. We have our predict the things that we have to predict, climate change effects and things are very necessary now,'' she said.
FILE - Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Cairo, Egypt, Oct. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, file)
FILE - A World Food Programme (WFP) truck backs up to load food items from a recently landed UN helicopter, in Yida camp, South Sudan, Sept. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A former Memphis police officer testified Tuesday that he punched a “helpless” Tyre Nichols at least five times while two colleagues held his arms and said, “hit him,” then lied to his supervisor about their use of force in a beating that proved fatal.
Emmitt Martin III testified that he was at the traffic stop on Jan, 7, 2023, when Nichols was pulled over and yanked from his car. Nichols fled, and Martin said Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith gave chase and were punching the 29-year-old man without their handcuffs out when Martin caught up with them.
“They were assaulting him,” Martin said Tuesday.
Bean, Smith and Demetrius Haley have pleaded not guilty to charges that they deprived Nichols of his civil rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and obstructed justice through witness tampering.
The four men, along with Desmond Mills Jr., were fired after Nichols' death. The beating was caught on police video, which was released publicly. The officers were later indicted on the federal charges. Martin and Mills have taken plea deals and are testifying against their former colleagues.
Jurors watched video clips as Nichols' mother and stepfather, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, sat outside the courtroom. RowVaughn Wells has never seen the video. Nichols’ brother watched the video inside.
Martin said he was angry that Nichols had run, and that the team had not yet made any arrests that night.
“I figured that’s what he should get,” Martin said.
Prosecutor Kathryn Gilbert asked Martin whether officers were allowed to use force out of anger.
“No ma’am,” he said, adding that he should have intervened.
Martin said he threw his body camera on the ground because he didn't want to show "we were assaulting Mr. Nichols.”
Martin said he kicked Nichols, while Mills hit him with a baton. Then Martin said he punched Nichols at least five times while Bean and Smith held his arms and urged Martin on. Officers were holding his arms while also commanding him to give them his hands.
“He was helpless,” Martin said of Nichols.
Martin said he did not tell Lt. Dewayne Smith, his supervisor, about their use of force. Martin said he told Lt. Smith that Nichols was high, without evidence, and that officers lied about Nichols driving into oncoming traffic and swinging at them during the traffic stop.
Martin testified that while he felt pressure on his gun belt at the traffic stop, he never saw Nichols' hands on his gun. Yet, Martin said, he told his supervisor that Nichols had his hands on his weapon.
“I exaggerated his actions to justify mine,” Martin said.
He said colleagues understood that, “they weren’t going to tell on me, and I wasn’t going to tell on them.”
Martin said they violated department policy with their use of force and lying about it.
Martin acknowledged his plea deal and he said he hoped the judge would show leniency at sentencing.
“I can’t sit here and live with a lie. The truth needs to come out,” Martin told Gilbert. “It was eating me up inside.”
Under cross examination by Bean’s lawyer, John Keith Perry, Martin said he had been injured in November 2022 when he was hit by a car, and he had only returned to work a few days before the Nichols arrest. While Martin was away from work, Justin Smith called and Martin told him he was having homicidal thoughts, Martin testified.
Perry tried to show inconsistencies between Martin’s previous statements to investigators and his court testimony.
He pressed Martin about his wording in court, such as “exaggerate” and “passive resistance,” suggesting Martin only used that language after lawyers guided him on his testimony. Martin acknowledged he did not use those words when speaking with internal affairs investigators in the days after the beating, adding that he was not being truthful at that time.
Nichols, who was Black, was pepper sprayed and hit with a stun gun during the traffic stop, but ran away, police video shows. The five officers, who also are Black, then beat him about a block from his home, as he called out for his mother.
Video shows the officers milling about and talking as Nichols struggled with his injuries. Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating.
An autopsy report shows Nichols — the father of a boy who is now 7 — died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas. A trial date in state court has not been set.
Associated Press reporter Jonathan Mattise contributed from Nashville, Tennessee.
Former Memphis police officer Demetrius Haley arrives at the federal courthouse for the second day of jury selection for the trial in the Tyre Nichols case Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Former Memphis police officer Justin Smith leaves the federal courthouse after the first day of jury selection of the trial in the Tyre Nichols case Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Attorney John Keith Perry, center, leaves the federal courthouse with his client former Memphis police officer Tadarrius Bean after the first day of jury selection of the trial in the Tyre Nichols case Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
FILE - This combo of images provided by the Memphis, Tenn., Police Department shows, top row from left, officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, and bottom row from left, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith. (Memphis Police Department via AP, File)
