The United Nations 5 million Sudanese face the threat of catastrophic hunger in months

UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths warned in a note to the UN Security Council that nearly 5 million people could suffer catastrophic hunger in some areas of the Sudan in the coming months.

Griffith said the acute levels of hunger were due to the conflict’s severe impact on agricultural production, damage to key infrastructure, disruption of trade flows, sharp price increases and barriers to humanitarian access and large-scale displacement.

Griffith wrote in the memo: “Without urgent humanitarian assistance and access to commodities… nearly 5 million people could be sliding into catastrophic hunger in some parts of the country in the coming months “.

Some people in Western and Central Darfur are likely to face “famine conditions as the security situation worsens and the dry season begins”, he said, stressing that cross-border delivery of aid from Chad to Darfur is a “critical lifeline.”

Griffith noted that nearly 730 thousand children across the Sudan are expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition, including more than 240 thousand children in Darfur.

“Collective loss of children’s lives”

In turn, the representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the Sudan, Mandip O’Brien, said that there was only a glimmer of hope left to prevent a “collective loss” of the lives and future of children in the Sudan.

O’Brien added that 14 million children needed humanitarian assistance in the Sudan, 4 million were displaced and millions suffered from hunger and severe malnutrition.

The representative of UNICEF called for an immediate ceasefire in the Sudan, more resources and unhindered access to save millions of children struggling to survive.

Save the Children has stated that approximately 230 thousand children, pregnant women and new mothers may die in the coming months from hunger unless urgent life-saving funding is released to respond to the Sudan’s deepening crisis.

The figures reveal a deterioration in humanitarian organizations’ ability to reach those in need with unprecedented funding shortfalls.

Since April 15, the conflict between the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed more than 9 thousands of people, according to a United Nations tally, which indicated that some 6 million people had been displaced inside the country or to neighbouring countries.

In October 2023, UNICEF reported that the Sudan had recorded the highest number of displaced children in the world, “with some 3 million fleeing” over the war.

The Sudan is facing the highest number of internally displaced persons in the world, according to UNICEF and Global Health, who said that the lack of food, safe drinking water, a clean environment, health care and many basic services put them at risk of dying from obstetric complications, low vaccination and disease outbreaks, and malnutrition was rising rapidly.