Famine looms in Sudan, forcing people to flee to neighboring countries, while talks between warring parties and a UN envoy are still under way in Geneva
by Aseel Saleh
July 18, 2024
The governments of 15 Arab and African countries issued a statement on Tuesday, July 16, expressing their deep concerns regarding the escalating food security crisis in war-torn Sudan. The countries included the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco, Mauritania, Chad, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Seychelles, Senegal, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mozambique and Nigeria.
The statement came as a reaction to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, which was published on June 27, 2024. “Fourteen months into the conflict, Sudan is facing the worst levels of acute food insecurity ever recorded by the IPC in the country,” the report said, pointing out that more than half of the population in Sudan have experienced severe hunger, which makes Sudan the world’s largest hunger crisis.
The number of starving people is estimated at 25.6 million people, with 14 areas at the risk of famine including greater Darfur, Greater Kordofan, Al Jazirah and some hotspots in Sudan’s capital Khartoum. Many starving Sudanese people have been reportedly fleeing Sudan to seek asylum in neighboring countries due to hunger and looming famine.
The countries who issued the statement expressed their concern about what was set out in the IPC report as a “stark and rapid deterioration” in food security, and its dire impact on the safety and well-being of civilians, including thousands of children, who have suffered from severe acute malnutrition.
According to a Save the Children report published on July 7, due to the war in Sudan 30% of children are acutely malnourished and 20% of the overall population is facing extreme food shortages.
Since the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in April 2023, the destruction caused by the fighting resulted in a sharp decrease in the agricultural production, and therefore a hike in food prices and food scarcity. The hunger crisis in Sudan has been further deepened by the severe restriction on the movement of food and aid convoys due to the ongoing conflict.
Reiterating the United Nations Security Council’s call from June of 2023, the countries urged all the parties to the conflict to ensure immediate, safe, and unrestricted access to civilian humanitarian aid. They also called on the conflicting parties to adhere to international humanitarian law and to comply with all relevant Security Council resolutions.
The statement also addressed foreign actors requesting them to stop providing armed or material support to the parties involved in the conflict and to refrain from any action which may ignite the conflict. Furthermore, it called on the international community for immediate and coordinated international response to tackle the urgent needs of the affected Sudanese population. The countries encouraged the international community to scale up the humanitarian assistance it provides, and to support the IPC recommendations for increasing nutrition interventions, restoring productive systems and improving data collection.
While the humanitarian situation in Sudan is constantly deteriorating, talks between a United Nations envoy and delegations from both conflicting parties continue in Geneva this week. The talks started last Thursday, focusing on humanitarian aid and the protection of civilians.
There were a few “promising signs” emerging from Monday’s talks in Geneva, the Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Sudan, Shible Sahbani commented. “Let’s wait for the coming hours and days, and we hope that if we don’t get a ceasefire, at least we can get the protection of civilians and the opening of humanitarian corridors,” he added.
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