THE humanitarian crisis caused by Sudan’s civil war is not only the world’s worst but “threatens to dwarf anything we have seen in decades,” a senior United Nations official has warned.
Nearly 25 million people — half the population — face extreme hunger, while people are dying in famine-hit areas of the western Darfur region, Shaun Hughes, the World Food Programme (WFP) emergency co-ordinator for Sudan, said on Thursday.
The country plunged into conflict on April 15 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders erupted into war in the capital Khartoum, with the fighting soon spreading to other regions.
Since then, at least 20,000 people have been reported killed, though the true number is probably far higher.
“By any metric, this is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” Mr Hughes told reporters, pointing to over eight million people displaced within Sudan and four million who have fled across borders to seven countries that also face hunger and need humanitarian aid.
Famine was initially confirmed last August in North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, where about 500,000 people sought refuge, but Mr Hughes said it had since spread to 10 other areas in Darfur and Kordofan, with 17 other areas at risk of famine in coming months.
“The scale of what is unfolding in Sudan threatens to dwarf anything we have seen in decades,” he said.
Speaking in a video press conference from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Mr Hughes said that “tens of thousands more people will die in Sudan during a third year of war unless WFP and other humanitarian agencies have the access and the resources to reach those in need.”
Late last month, the Sudanese military regained control over Khartoum, but the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces still control most of Darfur and some other areas.
