War pushes Sudan towards 'catastrophic' famine-like conditions
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[December 14, 2023]
By Nafisa Eltahir
CAIRO (Reuters) - Families in Sudan's conflict zones could experience
famine-like hunger by next summer, the United Nations has warned, while
some in the war-ravaged capital are surviving on a single, meager daily
meal.
Some 30 million people, almost two thirds of the population, are in need
of assistance in Sudan according to the UN, double the number before
fighting broke out between the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in
mid-April.
"More and more people are struggling to eat a basic meal a day, and
unless things change there is a very real risk they won't even be able
to do that," said WFP country head Eddie Rowe.
According to the U.N.'s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC),
some 18 million people urgently need humanitarian food assistance, the
highest number on record for the country's more plentiful harvest
season.
They are concentrated in the capital Khartoum, where more than half face
acute food insecurity, and the densely packed cities and towns that have
seen fighting in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.
According to the IPC, if conditions don't improve by May, families would
start to experience "catastrophic" hunger, meaning they would starve to
death without assistance, having depleted their assets and run out of
options.
A famine is declared by a government when 20% of households in a
particular geographic area are at the catastrophic stage.
The conflict has devastated Khartoum and sparked ethnically driven
killings in Darfur. Both sides have been accused of seizing supplies and
hampering aid workers' access.
In al-Shajara, a southern Khartoum neighborhood around the army's
besieged Armored Corps, a volunteer said the RSF had taken most supplies
heading for the 2,000 people who haven't fled the area.
"The siege makes it difficult to do anything. Even if you have money,
you can't spend it," said Gihad Salaheldin, who works in the emergency
response room, a network of volunteer groups that have provided most
on-the-ground assistance in Khartoum.
After more nutritious chickpeas ran out, volunteers managed to find two
25-kg sacks of cornflour, from which they make a gruel sweetened with a
remaining sack of sugar. It is expected to last four days.
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Sudanese women who fled the conflict in Geneina in Sudan's Darfur
region, line up to receive rice portions from Red Cross volunteers
in Ourang on the outskirts of Adre, Chad July 25, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra
Bensemra/File Photo
"After that we are leaving it up to God," Salaheldin said.
INSUFFICIENT AID
Estimates of those going hungry have been revised upwards by the IPC
as fighting expands, decimating local markets and impacting
agriculture. Family savings are drying up even as prices rise for
costly imports.
The area farmers planted during this year's season was 15% smaller
than the average for the past five years, and production of key
staples sorghum and millet fell by 24% and 50% compared to 2022, the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said last month, as limited
financing and below-average rains hit Sudan's already struggling
farmers.
WFP and other aid agencies struggle to safely access people in the
worst-affected conflict zones and have had to focus aid on more
peaceful areas.
The agency has reached Khartoum, where a few million people still
live, only once in the last three months, distributing food to
100,000 in the Karari locality during a lull in the fighting.
And funding shortfalls mean that even in safe areas, some are turned
away.
"We have crowds lining up in places like Gezira where people have
fled to, but we don't have enough to support everyone," said WFP
spokesperson Leni Kinzli.
The U.N.'s 2023 appeal for Sudan is only one-third funded, in line
with similar crises apart from Ukraine, which is 56% funded.
It is asking for $4 billion next year to address the needs of people
impacted by the war inside and outside Sudan.
(Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Nick
Macfie)
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