The World Food Programme of the United Nations said on Wednesday that Sudan’s nearly 11-month-long conflict between rival generals “risks triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis”.
Tens of thousands of people have died, infrastructure has been destroyed, and Sudan’s economy has been severely damaged in the conflict between army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who is in charge of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
It is the biggest displacement crisis in history, having uprooted almost eight million people in addition to the two million individuals who were forcibly displaced from their homes before to the conflict.
Now, “millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake”, WFP executive director Cindy McCain said.
“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest hunger crisis and the world rallied to respond,” she said, referring to the vast western region of Sudan.
“But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten.”
The RSF are themselves descended from the Janjaweed militia, which was used by former dictator Omar al-Bashir against ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in the early 2000s.
Both the RSF and the army have been charged with indiscriminately bombarding residential areas throughout the present conflict, targeting civilians, and delaying and seizing vital aid.
Only 5% of Sudanese citizens “can afford a square meal a day,” according to the WFP, which is presently unable to reach 90% of those experiencing “emergency levels of hunger.”
“Families arrive hungry and are met with more hunger” in the packed transit camps in South Sudan, where 600,000 people have fled from Sudan, according to the UN food agency.
It further stated that one in five youngsters who crossed the border was undernourished.
Across Sudan, 18 million people are facing acute food security, five million of whom are at catastrophic levels of hunger — the highest emergency classification short of famine.
