Four months into a conflict between competing generals, Save the Children reported on Tuesday that at least 498 children and “likely hundreds more” have died in Sudan from starvation.
On April 15, a battle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under the command of Mohamed Hamdan Daglo erupted.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, almost four million people have been uprooted, and over 5,000 people have died.
“At least 498 children in Sudan and likely hundreds more have died from hunger, including two dozen babies in a state orphanage,” Save the Children said in a statement.
The British charity said it had been forced to close 57 of its nutrition facilities since the war began and that stocks were running “critically low” in the 108 it still operates.
“Never did we think we would see children dying from hunger in such numbers, but this is now the reality in Sudan,” said Save the Children’s Sudan country director, Arif Noor.
“Seriously ill children are arriving in the arms of desperate mothers and fathers at nutrition centres across the country and our staff have few options on how to treat them.
“We are seeing children dying from entirely preventable hunger.” In a statement last week, the heads of 20 international humanitarian organisations warned that “more than six million Sudanese people are one step away from famine”.
A quarter of Sudan’s 48 million people live in Darfur, a huge western region that includes Khartoum, where the violence continued on Tuesday.
Nyala, Sudan’s second city, is the focal point of conflict in Darfur, according to the UN, where since August 11 at least 60 people have died, 250 have been injured, and 50,000 have been internally displaced.
The army reported that its leader had died on Monday.
Trucks carrying aid have been unable to gain access to Nyala, while the only hospital still operating in the South Darfur capital says it has been overwhelmed with wounded.
The war spread this month to the North Darfur state capital of El Fasher, with at least 27 localities burned down by the RSF and allied Arab militias, according to the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.
“No one is stopping them. The RSF are moving freely while the army is turtled in its bases,” Nathaniel Raymond, who heads the Lab, told AFP.
