United Nations: The United Nations’ humanitarian office on Wednesday warned that Sudan was on course to become the world’s worst hunger crisis with soaring malnutrition and children deaths following the nearly year-long conflict between its military and paramilitary forces. The African nation plunged into chaos after the military led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces clashed in street battles that soon engulfed the country.

Edem Wosornu, the director of humanitarian operations, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that already one-third of Sudan’s population – 18 million people – face acute food insecurity, and catastrophic hunger levels could be reached in some areas of the western Darfur region by the time “the lean season” arrives in May.

“A recent assessment revealed that one child is dying every two hours in Zamzam camp in El Fasher, North Darfur. Our humanitarian partners estimate that in the coming weeks and months, somewhere in the region of around 222,000 children could die from malnutrition,” she said. Wosornu called the harrowing violent situation that has seen appalling accounts of ethnic-based attacks, sexual violence including gang rapes, and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas, “the stuff of nightmares”.

What is going on in Sudan?

The ongoing attention to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and the Russia-Ukraine war has overshadowed the “humanitarian travesty playing out in Sudan under a veil of international inattention and inaction”, said Wosernu. The fighting was particularly worse in Darfur, with brutal attacks by the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces on ethnic African civilians, resulting in thousands of casualties.

In late January, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, said there are grounds to believe both sides in the current conflict are committing possible war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Darfur. Wosornu said there has been no respite from fierce fighting in Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan which are home to 90 per cent of the people facing emergency levels of food insecurity.

Additionally, farmers have been forced to abandon their fields and cereal production has dropped since hostilities moved into Sudan’s breadbasket, Jazeera state, in December, she said. However, despite the UN appealing for $2.7 million in humanitarian aid, the country has received just $131 million. 

Food security situation has ‘profound implications’: UN

The UN director for humanitarian operations said the UN must have access to reach the most vulnerable people in Khartoum, Darfur, Kordofan and Jazeera states which “continue to be severely obstructed” by the fighting. Carl Skau, the UN World Food Program’s deputy executive director, told the council the rapidly worsening food security situation in Sudan also has “profound regional implications”.

In addition to the 18 million people facing acute food insecurity in Sudan, he said 7 million people in neighbouring South Sudan and nearly 3 million in Chad which borders Darfur also face dire hunger. Currently, 90 per cent of people who are a step away from the catastrophic level of food security and urgently need life-saving food “are trapped in areas that are largely inaccessible to humanitarian agencies,” including Khartoum, Jazeera, Kordofan and Darfur, said Skar.

“If we are going to prevent Sudan from becoming the world’s largest hunger crisis, coordinated efforts and joined-up diplomacy are urgent and critical,” he said. “We need all parties to provide unrestricted access: across borders and across conflict lines.”

Rein Paulsen, Director of the FAO Office of Emergencies and Resilience, told a news conference that an agency report on Sudan issued on Tuesday demonstrates the conflict’s damage to agricultural production: cereal production in 2023 dropped 46 per cent below 2022, and up to 80 per cent below in areas where the conflict was most intense.

US pledges aid for Sudan

The United States on Wednesday pledged about $47 million in new humanitarian assistance for the emergency response in Sudan and neighboring countries, including Chad and South Sudan, the US State Department said in a statement. The announcement brings total US humanitarian assistance for people in Sudan and neighboring countries to more than $968 million since fiscal year 2023, the Department said.

Earlier, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths warned the Security Council said that nearly five million people in Sudan could suffer catastrophic hunger in parts of the war-torn country in the coming months. Griffiths said acute levels of hunger were being driven by the severe impact of the conflict on agricultural production, damage to major infrastructure and livelihoods, disruptions to trade flows, severe price increases, impediments to humanitarian access and large-scale displacement.

Last month, the UN human rights office said that at least 12,000 people were killed and at least 118 people had been subjected to sexual violence, including rape — with many of the assaults committed by members of the paramilitary forces. More than 10 million people were forced to leave their homes either to safer areas inside Sudan or to neighbouring countries, according to UN agencies.

(with inputs from agencies)

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