For half of Sudan’s war-torn population, every day is a struggle to survive. UN agencies: Sudan faces famine of unprecedented proportions Humanitarian assistance
Forecasts released Thursday by three U.N. agencies show Sudan faces a devastating disaster on a scale not seen since the Darfur crisis in the early 2000s.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Program (WFP) have warned of rapidly deteriorating living conditions for Sudan’s people, especially children, in a war that has lasted more than a year , brought the country to the brink of mass famine.
With joint efforts, UN agencies mobilized large-scale humanitarian assistance inside Sudan and in neighboring countries where more than two million Sudanese refugees have found refuge . An immediate ceasefire is necessary to ensure that humanitarian aid can arrive in a timely manner and on a sufficient scale. /h2>
Rapidly deteriorating food security in 14 regions of Sudan has left 755,000 people in catastrophic conditions. The worst conditions were in the provinces hardest hit by the fighting, as well as in areas where people were displaced by the conflict. A total of 25.6 million people are at risk of acute hunger. This means that for half of Sudan’s war-torn population, every day is a struggle for survival.
Unlike the crisis in Darfur two decades ago, the current crisis is affecting the entire country , with catastrophic levels of hunger observed even in the capital and in the state of Gezira, once the breadbasket of Sudan.
“The food security situation in Sudan is rapidly deteriorating and the lives of millions of people are at risk,” said FAO Director-General Ku Dongyu. “We urgently need $60 million to implement our hunger prevention plan so that people—especially in hard-to-reach areas—can produce food locally and avoid food shortages in the next six months.”
Scaling up humanitarian response
WFP has reached three million displaced and vulnerable people in Sudan this year and is scaling up its assistance to reach five more by the end of the year million people. In the coming weeks, the organization plans to send more convoys to Sudan and neighboring Chad with food and supplies for about 250,000 people. WFP is pre-positioning assistance at key crossings and supply routes ahead of the onset of the rainy season, when many roads in Darfur and other parts of Sudan become impassable.
FAO, in turn, is preparing to support 1.8 million farmers and pastoralists in Sudan, the equivalent of nine million people. The organization has purchased almost eight thousand tons of cereal seeds and will reach more than 870 thousand farms across Sudan, including in Darfur and Kordofan, where food insecurity has reached catastrophic proportions. FAO’s experience shows that with access to land and inputs, farmers can produce their own food even in conflict situations.