Gaza ceasefire – Save the Children’s Janti Soeripto describes stalled aid access in Sudan and says a Gaza peace plan is not working despite White House claims.
A Save the Children executive returned from Sudan warning that the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is also one of the most ignored, even as the U.S. pursues ceasefire efforts meant to open the flow of relief.
Janti Soeripto. the former president and CEO of Save the Children U.S.. spoke on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Mother’s Day. describing what she saw after a trip to Darfur.. She said the need was enormous and the ability to reach children and mothers was severely constrained by logistical barriers. including the difficulty of moving through multiple militia-held areas.
Soeripto said it took her four days to reach the first school her organization supports.. She characterized the situation as “the last mile” challenge writ large. where the distance between humanitarian assistance and the people who need it is created not just by geography but by ongoing security lines controlled by armed groups.
She also said the crisis environment is so disruptive that even humanitarian workers are forced into displacement.. Save the Children has about 150 colleagues in Darfur. she said. and she reported that all of them had lost their homes.. In her account, many staff members came from El Fasher, where she said violence occurred last October.
Soeripto described a particularly vivid case from within her network: a colleague who had to walk with her 16-year-old daughter. with the daughter threatened as they moved.. She said the mother endured days without sleep trying to keep herself and her family alive. and that the daughter was ultimately rescued—an outcome she contrasted with many others she said do not end with safety.
She further argued that. in northern Darfur. women-led households bear much of the burden because the men are either killed. have disappeared. or have joined fighting groups.. She described a stretch of desert with 700. 000 displaced people. saying most households there are women-led and are effectively forced to manage survival under extreme strain.
On the scale of suffering. Soeripto pointed to the role of sexual violence in the conflict. describing it as systematically used as a tactic of war.. The interview highlighted claims that 34 million people need urgent assistance in Sudan and that UN figures indicate 13 million people—mostly women and girls—require support related to sexual violence. a figure she said is higher than before the current escalation.
The conversation also turned to how U.S.. and international decisions can affect aid delivery through economics and routing, not only battlefield conditions.. Soeripto said humanitarian shipments are being slowed by disruptions connected to the war in Iran. including the impact of aid being stuck in the Strait of Hormuz.
She said Save the Children currently has about a half million stocks stuck in Dubai that cannot be retrieved. including medicine and drugs.. She also described rising transport costs and said some nutrition supplies have become more expensive since the start of the war—specifically citing Plumpy’nut. used to treat malnutrition in young infants and children—while also saying that alternative routing takes longer.
Beyond the costs, she said the supply chain faces additional operational barriers inside Sudan.. Authorization requirements are difficult. she said. and infrastructure can collapse quickly: in one example. she described a tarmac road ending an hour after the border in western Darfur. after which the journey becomes far more hazardous.
Soeripto said the result is that relief shipments can take days and sometimes weeks to reach communities that need them urgently.
The interview then shifted to the Middle East. where the White House has described “tremendous progress” on implementing President Trump’s 20-point peace plan in Gaza. including during a ceasefire period.. Soeripto said humanitarian organizations that include Save the Children have reached a different assessment—particularly six months into the Gaza ceasefire.
She said her organization approached the debate by taking the 20-point plan and comparing it against what they were seeing on the ground.. Save the Children. she said. relied on data and accounts from its staff. alongside publicly available information from the UN and other sources. to evaluate whether violence was decreasing and whether aid access was sufficiently open for both supplies and staff.
Soeripto said her team published a methodology for scoring the evidence and that it stands by the facts as they observed them.. She acknowledged that Save the Children has around 200 staff in Gaza working daily. but she said access constraints remain severe enough that the plan. as currently implemented. is not working.
Central to her critique was that supplies could not reliably get in, and that staff members could not be rotated and supported on a consistent basis. In her telling, those barriers prevent relief operations from functioning at the level needed, undermining the stated progress.
Taken together. Soeripto’s account reflects a recurring pattern in multiple theaters of U.S.-connected humanitarian diplomacy: ceasefire goals and peace frameworks may be discussed at the policy level. but relief on the ground depends on access corridors. the ability to move staff. and the ability to transport medical and food supplies safely and affordably.
For Washington, the remarks also raise a practical political question—how to measure whether diplomacy is translating into operational outcomes.. When humanitarian groups say aid access remains constrained. the gap can become a flashpoint in public debates over what “progress” means and who can verify it.
As the U.S.. continues to weigh ceasefire and peace efforts abroad while humanitarian conditions deteriorate in places like Sudan and Gaza. Soeripto’s warnings place renewed emphasis on logistics and protection.. Her central message is that without reliable routes and repeatable access. even strong policy intentions can fall short of reaching the children and families aid organizations are meant to serve.
Janti Soeripto Save the Children U.S. Sudan humanitarian aid Gaza ceasefire 20-point peace plan sexual violence U.S. foreign policy