Nearly 11 months into the war between rival generals in Sudan, United Nations humanitarians issued a stark warning that the ongoing conflict risks triggering "the world's worst hunger crisis."
With some 8 million people uprooted by the conflict, the northeast African country is already in the grip of the world's largest displacement crisis as fighting continues between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces, a rival paramilitary group.
The U.N. Security Council demanded an immediate cessation to the hostilities and unhindered humanitarian access in Sudan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts on Sunday.
The U.K.-sponsored resolution was approved on Friday in a 14-0 vote, with Russia abstaining. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned the 15-nation council that the war could spill over borders.
"There is now a serious risk that the conflict could ignite regional instability of dramatic proportions, from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea," he said. "It is time to silence the guns and raise the volume for peace."
Since 2019, the U.N.'s World Food Program says, the number of people facing acute food insecurity in Sudan more than tripled to nearly 18 million. Nearly 5 million are experiencing emergency levels of hunger.
“Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake,” Cindy McCain, WFP's executive director, said on Wednesday.
Fewer than one in 20 people in Sudan can afford a full meal while over 25 million people across Sudan, South Sudan, and Chad are trapped in a spiral of deteriorating food security, WFP reports.
The people 'have been forgotten'
McCain spoke from South Sudan, where she was meeting with families fleeing the violence and the worsening famine situation across the country’s northern border.
“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest hunger crisis, and the world rallied to respond,” she said. “But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten.”
The deepening food crisis beyond Sudan, the U.N. food agency says, underscores the magnitude of the humanitarian challenge facing the region. UNICEF, the U.N. children’s fund, says 14 million children desperately need lifesaving assistance.
Humanitarian aid workers, already severely underfunded, are restricted in their movements by the fighting and interference from warring parties and can barely help those in need, WFP warns.
Aid shipments to Darfur shut down
The agency has been unable to provide sufficient emergency food aid to desperate communities in Sudan. Assistance was further disrupted when government authorities revoked permits for cross-border truck convoys, forcing humanitarian teams to halt operations from Chad into Darfur, Sudan’s western district.
With nine-in-10 people facing hunger in Sudan stranded in areas that are largely inaccessible to humanitarians, WFP issued a renewed appeal for a halt in the fighting and for all aid agencies to be given access to those in need.
Meanwhile, as more and more people flee into South Sudan and Chad, the humanitarian response is at breaking point.
McCain traveled to Renk in eastern South Sudan, where about 600,000 people have crossed from Sudan during the past 10 months. The WFP chief visited the crowded transit camps where families arrive hungry but are met with more hunger.
“I met mothers and children who have fled for their lives not once, but multiple times, and now hunger is closing in on them,” McCain said. “The consequences of inaction go far beyond a mother unable to feed her child and will shape the region for years to come.”
The lasting impact of hunger
Acute hunger and malnutrition have a lasting generational impact, the World Health Organization warns, increasing vulnerable groups’ risk of medical complications and death from disease outbreaks, such as cholera and measles.
The U.N. health agency reported last month that access to health services in Sudan was severely limited. Most of the health facilities in conflict-affected areas were either inaccessible or not functioning, it said, putting “significant strain” on the remaining facilities as a surge of sick, injured and starving people seek care.
“People are dying from lack of access to basic and essential health care and medicines,” the agency's health officials said.
Economy in ruins
The heads of WFP and WHO are calling for an end to the fighting and unhindered access so their organizations can quickly increase and sustain humanitarian aid in Sudan.
The conflict between General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan's army and his former deputy, General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo's RSF fighters, has wrought havoc in their country. Millions have been terrified and displaced, tens of thousands have lost their lives, and the nation's economy has been left in ruins.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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