Asha Kano Kavi, an internally displaced woman from Kadugli, feeds boiled leaves gathered from the wild to hungry orphaned children in Sudan. (Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)
Sudan faces risk of widespread famine, international coalition warns
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- Around 19.5 million people face acute food insecurity, including five million experiencing emergency levels of hunger.
- The international coalition is calling on both sides of the conflict to facilitate humanitarian aid deliveries, lift bureaucratic restrictions and allow access to conflict-affected areas.
An international coalition of foreign and development ministers, alongside senior officials from more than 30 countries and international partners, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Canada, Australia and the European Commission, issued an urgent joint statement on Tuesday warning of a worsening food security crisis in Sudan.
The coalition said warnings from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) indicate that Sudan could face widespread famine in the coming months, calling for immediate international and humanitarian action to prevent further loss of life.
According to the statement, approximately 19.5 million people, or 41% of Sudan’s population, are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity. Of those, five million are facing emergency levels of hunger.
The statement also warned that without immediate intervention, the number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition could exceed the projected 825,000. The number of areas at risk of food insecurity, previously estimated at 14, could also double.
The coalition held the parties to Sudan’s conflict primarily responsible for worsening humanitarian conditions, saying the war has driven mass displacement, damaged infrastructure and disrupted supply chains, healthcare facilities and agricultural production.
These pressures have been compounded by systematic obstacles to aid convoys and drought linked to the El Niño climate phenomenon, which the statement said has affected half of Sudan’s territory.
The signatories urged both sides of the conflict to allow humanitarian operations through all border crossings and across front lines, open airspace over the Darfur region to humanitarian operations, remove bureaucratic restrictions and customs fees, and immediately halt attacks on civilian infrastructure and food systems.
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