Nearly a year into Sudan’s civil war, nearly 18 million people face a food insecurity crisis and tens of thousands of children are particularly at risk of dying from malnutrition, United Nations humanitarian officials said on Wednesday.
“The highest levels of food insecurity are found in areas where conflict is active,” Maurizio Martina, deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told a UN Security Council meeting.
“Nearly nine out of 10 people facing emergency food insecurity (IPC Phase 4) are in conflict hotspots in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, as well as Khartoum and Gezira states,” he Refers to the hunger comprehensive stage classification index.
Nearly 730,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition, including more than 240,000 in the fiercely fighting Darfur region.
Edem Wosornu, director of operations at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said: “Our humanitarian partners estimate that somewhere in the region over the coming weeks and months Some 222,000 children may die from malnutrition.”
She said a recent assessment by the charity Medecins Sans Frontières concluded that a child died every two hours from malnutrition in the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur.
FAO’s Martina said this was the worst hunger level recorded during the Sudanese harvest season on IPC records. They are driven by conflict, as crops are destroyed in fighting, farmers flee their land, critical infrastructure is damaged, food and fuel prices soar, and market access is disrupted. At the same time, Sudanese are experiencing an economic crisis that began in 2019, with inflation reaching 300% by the end of last year.
The United Nations has warned that nearly 5 million people in parts of the country could face catastrophic hunger by the lean season in May, moving just one step away from famine.
Next season’s harvest will also be at risk if farmers are unable to prepare land and plant seeds in late May to June.
“The outlook for food production in 2024 is bleak,” Martina said.
Humanitarians say they need an end to the fighting, more funding and safe and unrestricted access to all communities in need to avoid a larger crisis.
“Our efforts to reach these civilians are challenged by relentless violence and interference from warring parties,” said Carl Skow, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Program. “Bureaucratic obstacles further reduce the space for humanitarian workers to operate. .”
The United Nations appealed for $2.7 billion for Sudan this year but received only $133 million, jeopardizing its rescue operations.
Fighting broke out last April between Sudan’s army chief of staff, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The two generals were allies of Sudan’s transitional government after the 2021 coup but later became rivals for power.
The ensuing war resulted in thousands of deaths, a mass displacement crisis, and mass atrocities, particularly against non-Arab communities in the country’s Darfur region.
On March 8, the Security Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but the warring parties ignored it.
Sudan is now home to the world’s worst internal displacement crisis, with 6.3 million people forced to leave their homes in search of safety. Another 1.7 million people have fled to neighboring countries. More than 70% of health facilities in conflict areas have ceased operations.
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