Global Hunger Monitor Says Parts of Sudan Risk Famine

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Around Africa Friday, June 28th, 2024

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – There is a realistic chance of famine in 14 areas across Sudan if the war that began in April last year escalates, a global monitor said on Thursday, in a sharply worsening hunger crisis that the World Food Programme called the world’s largest.

The areas are located in the capital Khartoum, the regions of Darfur and Kordofan, and El Gezira state, places that have seen the heaviest fighting, an update from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said.

The IPC said its analysis marked a “stark and rapid deterioration of the food security situation” in Sudan in December and recorded the worst levels of hunger it had observed in the country.

The number of people experiencing a hunger crisis in the lean season period to September, when less harvested food is available, rose by 45 per cent to 25.6 million, or more than half the population, the IPC said.

Some 8.5 million people – nearly a fifth of the population – face food shortages that could result in acute malnutrition and death or require emergency coping strategies.

As reported previously by Reuters, some 755,000 are projected to be in “catastrophe”, the most severe level of extreme hunger up from zero in December. War between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted more than 14 months ago in the capital, and quickly spread to other parts of the country.

It has triggered ethnically-driven violence in the western region of Darfur, caused the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis and split control of the country between the rival camps.

A hunger crisis, which the WFP said on Thursday was the worst in the world, has already pushed some Sudanese to eat leaves and soil. (Reuters/NAN)