WFP: Sudan on the verge of ‘world’s worst hunger crisis’

The United Nations’ World Food Program warned on Wednesday that nearly 11 months of war between rival generals in Sudan “risks triggering the world’s worst hunger crisis.”

The war between Army Chief of Staff Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, who commanded the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has killed tens of thousands and destroyed the foundations facilities and crippled Sudan’s economy.

The conflict has uprooted more than 8 million people, in addition to the 2 million people who had been forced from their homes before the conflict, making it the world’s largest displacement crisis.

Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, said now “millions of lives and the peace and stability of the entire region are at risk.”

“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s biggest hunger crisis, and the world came together to deal with it,” she said, referring to Sudan’s vast western region.

“But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten.”

MSF itself is descended from the Janjaweed militia that was used by former dictator Omar al-Bashir to suppress ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in the early 2000s.

In the current war, both Médecins Sans Frontières and the military have been accused of indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, targeting civilians and obstructing and expropriating vital aid.

The World Food Program is currently unable to provide assistance to the 90 per cent of people facing “emergency levels of hunger” and says only 5 per cent of Sudan’s population “can afford one full meal a day”.

The United Nations food agency said that in crowded transit camps in South Sudan, where 600,000 Sudanese have fled, “some families arrived hungry, but the hunger was even worse.”

One in five children crossing the border is malnourished, the report added.

Across Sudan, 18 million people face severe food insecurity, with 5 million experiencing catastrophic hunger, the highest level of emergency outside of famine.