Famine in war-torn Sudan is spreading, global monitor warns

Famine in Sudan has expanded to five areas and will likely spread to another five by May, the global hunger monitor reported today, while warring parties continue to disrupt humanitarian aid needed to alleviate one of the worst starvation crises in modern times, Reuters reports.

Famine conditions were confirmed in Abu Shouk and Al-Salam, two camps for internally displaced people in Al-Fashir, the besieged capital of North Darfur, as well as two other areas in South Kordofan state, according to the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Phase Classification, or IPC. The committee also found famine, first identified in August, persists in North Darfur’s Zamzam camp.

The committee, which vets and verifies a famine finding, predicts famine will expand to five additional areas in North Darfur — Um Kadadah, Melit, Al-Fashir, Tawisha and Al-Lait — by May. The committee identified another 17 areas across Sudan as at risk of famine.

The IPC estimated about 24.6 million people, about half of all Sudanese, urgently need food aid through February, a sharp increase from the 21.1 million originally projected in June for the same period.

READ: An elaborate global system exists to prevent famine. It’s failing

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has looted commercial and humanitarian food supplies, disrupted farming and besieged some areas, making trade more costly and food prices unaffordable. The government also has blocked humanitarian organisations’ access to some parts of the country.

“We have the food. We have the trucks on the road. We have the people on the ground. We just need safe passage to deliver assistance,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, director of food security and nutrition analysis for the UN’s World Food Program.

In October, the Sudanese government pressured the U.N. to remove the top humanitarian aid official for Sudan’s embattled Darfur region after the person traveled there without government authorization, three sources told Reuters. Requests for authorization had stalled, the sources said. The government told the U.N. it would throw the official out if he was not withdrawn, the sources said. The U.N. complied.

The government didn’t respond to questions about the aid official’s removal. A U.N. spokesperson said the organization doesn’t comment on staff “working arrangements.”

READ: More than 700 killed in siege of Sudan’s Al-Fashir, UN rights chief says