Conflicts
WFP: World’s largest hunger crisis looms in embattled Sudan
Everyday life in Khartoum: Smoke rises over roofs after ongoing fighting in the capital. photo
© Marwan Ali/AP/dpa
The world’s largest displacement crisis now threatens to become the worst hunger crisis. 25 million people are affected. “The people of Sudan have been forgotten,” it is said.
The conflict between the army and paramilitaries Sudan has sparked the world’s largest displacement crisis. According to the World Food Program (WFP), it is now threatening to become the world’s largest hunger crisis. More than 25 million people are starving in Sudan and in the neighboring states of South Sudan and Chad, where they have fled, the WFP said.
“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest hunger crisis and the global community came together to act. But today the people of Sudan have been forgotten,” warned WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. Currently, 90 percent of the people who urgently need food aid are in areas inaccessible to aid organizations. Millions of lives are at risk, said McCain.
There have been fighting for almost a year
According to the WFP, authorities have revoked permits for cross-border truck convoys. Deliveries from neighboring Chad to the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan should therefore have been stopped. More than a million people there have been dependent on the deliveries for months.
The army has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the northeast African country with around 44 million inhabitants for almost eleven months. The army and RSF jointly seized power in a coup in 2021, but later fell out over power-sharing, which resulted in a violent conflict on April 15, 2023.
According to UN figures, around eight million people have fled or been displaced within the country since the violence began – currently the largest number in the world in a conflict. At least 14,600 people have been killed so far. Both sides are accused of serious crimes against human rights.