Famine has spread to five new regions of war-torn Sudan, according to a report published today by the Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system used by United Nations agencies.
The report predicts that the situation will extend to the Darfur region by May.
According to the report, 638,000 people are currently facing famine in three refugee camps in North Darfur and the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan.
In August, the IPC declared a famine in the Zamzam IDP camp in North Darfur.
Sudan has been torn apart by 20 months of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by rival generals, which has led to a dire humanitarian crisis.
The war, which began in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million Sudanese, creating what the United Nations has called the world’s largest displacement crisis.
In its latest report, published on Tuesday, the IPC said 638,000 people are currently facing catastrophic levels of hunger, with another 8.1 million on the brink of starvation.
The IPC found that hunger was widespread in three camps in North Darfur, including Zamzam, where famine was officially declared in August, and among displaced people and communities in the Nuba Mountains in the South Kordofan region.
Between December and May, the IPC said 24.6 million people, about half of Sudan’s population, were expected to face “high levels of acute food insecurity.”
The war between the army and the RSF is due to strong differences over the process of integrating the paramilitary group - now declared a rebel - into the armed forces, a situation that has derailed the transition that began after the overthrow of the regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019.
On Monday, Sudan's leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, urged the UN to take action against countries supporting the RSF and to move towards a resolution of the conflict.
The President of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council conveyed this request to the personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General, Ramtane Lamamra, during a meeting in Port Sudan, which was also attended by Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Yousef.
During the meeting, Al-Burhan reiterated the importance of “international organizations taking decisive and deterrent measures against countries supporting the rebels,” referring to the United Arab Emirates, which he has repeatedly accused of financing and providing logistical support to the RSF.
Al-Burhan said that ceasing support for the rebels would accelerate steps towards ending the conflict, which would in turn lead to citizens returning to their homes and a political process aimed at holding elections “in which the Sudanese people will decide their political future without external intervention.”
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the war began on April 15, 2023, while more than 11 million are internally displaced by the violence, making Sudan home to the world’s worst internal displacement crisis, according to the UN.
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