The war that has ravaged Sudan for nearly eleven months “could create the largest hunger crisis in the world” in a country which is already experiencing the largest population displacement crisis on the globe, the World Food Program warned on Wednesday March 6 ( WFP).
The fighting – which has left thousands dead and eight million displaced – “threatens millions of lives, the peace and stability of an entire region,” says WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “Twenty years ago, Darfur experienced the world’s largest hunger crisis and the world came together to respond, but today the Sudanese are forgotten,” she continues.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the then dictator, Omar Al-Bashir, who was ousted in 2019, launched militiamen, the janjawids, to lead a scorched earth policy in Darfur, a vast region of western Sudan. Today, they are grouped within the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohammed Hamdane Daglo, known as “Hemetti”, at war since April 15, 2023 against the army of General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhane.
A child dies every two hours
Bombing of civilians, destruction of infrastructure, rape, looting, forced displacement and burning of villages have become daily life for the 48 million Sudanese. If this violence does not stop, “the war in Sudan could create the largest hunger crisis in the world,” assures Ms. McCain.
Currently, “less than 5%” of Sudanese “can afford a full meal,” according to the WFP. In the Zamzam displaced persons camp in Darfur, a child dies every two hours according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF). In South Sudan, where 600,000 people have taken refuge from war, “one in five children in transit centers at the border are malnourished,” reports Ms. McCain.
Across Sudan, 18 million people are acutely food insecure – 5 million of whom have reached the final threshold before famine – and can barely be helped by humanitarians facing obstacles to movement and a severe lack of funding, after the WFP.
