Sudanese children ‘wasting away’ due to hunger
The past four months of fighting in Sudan has pushed millions into food insecurity – with an additional 1.5 million children expected to fall into crisis levels of hunger by September – as aid agencies say they are struggling to reach people.
Up to 17,000 children a day have been falling into crisis levels of hunger, Save the Children warned on Tuesday, according to The Guardian.
With 4 million people displaced so far, the charity said more people were facing hunger in Sudan than at any point since records there began in 2012.
“It’s impossible to overemphasize the seriousness of the situation in Sudan. This is a desperate, dire crisis for children,” said Arif Noor, Save the Children’s director in Sudan.
“In conflict areas, if you go to a market, you risk being robbed, shelled, murdered or caught in the crossfire,” he said. “If you get to that market, the chances are the shelves are empty.”
According to the most recent report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, areas with the worst fighting are predictably seeing the highest rates of hunger. Across the country, 20.3 million people – or 42 percent of Sudan’s population – were gripped by high levels of acute food insecurity, the IPC said.
More than half of the population needs urgent help in Darfur, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been accused of large-scale massacres of minority ethnic groups.
The Sudanese independent broadcaster Radio Dabanga reported that 132 children had died of malnutrition-related conditions in the eastern state of El Gedaref.
Prices of staple foods such as sorghum, millet and wheat are already high but shortages are likely to worsen as farmers are forced from their land by fighting.
An open letter from humanitarian leaders released this week called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and warned the international community that there was “no excuse for waiting” to act in stopping the conflict “as Sudan’s children are wasting away”.
Frustrated aid workers have bemoaned the lack of funding and support for humanitarian operations in Sudan, compared with the response to the war in Ukraine, condemning the disinterest as “unapologetically racist”.