(United Nations) Nearly 5 million people could plunge into “catastrophic food insecurity” in the coming months in war-torn Sudan, according to a UN document seen Friday by AFP, which calls for better humanitarian access and ceasefire.
“Without urgent humanitarian aid and access to basic products”, nearly 5 million Sudanese, already in a food emergency situation (phase 4 of the IPC scale which has 5), “could slide into catastrophic food insecurity in parts of the country in the coming months,” writes the head of the UN Office of Humanitarian Operations Martin Griffiths in this note sent to the Security Council.
The IPC is the classification scale for food insecurity, on which UN agencies base themselves.
“Populations classified in phase 4 in West Darfur and Central Darfur will probably move to IPC phase 5,” he estimates.
The latest IPC report estimated the number of people in phase 4 (emergency) in Sudan at 4.9 million, including more than 300,000 in Central Darfur and more than 400,000 in West Darfur. No one was then classified in phase 5 of “starvation”.
In total, nearly 18 million Sudanese people face serious food insecurity (phase 3 and above), a “record” figure during the harvest period and 10 million more than at the same period last year.
Women, children and displaced people are “particularly at risk,” warns Martin Griffiths, noting that nearly 730,000 children, including 240,000 in Darfur, are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition.
“An unprecedented increase in treatment of cases of acute wasting, the deadliest form of malnutrition, is already observed in accessible areas,” indicates the humanitarian official, worrying about difficult-to-access areas where “nearly three-quarters of the 4.7 million children are seriously malnourished and pregnant or breastfeeding women need urgent help.”
He calls for “urgent measures” to prevent this catastrophe “from taking hold,” in particular better humanitarian access, more money, and a ceasefire.
“To reach those in need, humanitarian organizations need safe, rapid, continuous and unhindered access, particularly across front lines,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the secretary-general, said earlier on Friday. of ONU.
“A massive mobilization of resources from the international community is also essential,” he insisted, while the UN humanitarian plan for Sudan in 2024, estimated at 2.7 billion dollars, n is only less than 5% funded.
There are enough humanitarian stocks in Port Sudan but access to the population poses a problem, explained Jill Lawler, from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), returning from the Khartoum region, demanding the possibility of traveling across front lines and crossing the borders of neighboring countries.
At the beginning of March, the World Food Program (WFP) already sounded the alarm: the war “could create the largest hunger crisis in the world” in a country which is already experiencing the largest population displacement crisis on the globe. .
The fighting, which has raged since April 15, 2023 between the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces (FSR, paramilitary) of General Mohammed Hamdane Daglo, former number two in power, has killed thousands of dead and more than eight million displaced, according to the UN.
The regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Hanan Balkhy expressed alarm on Friday in a press release about the health situation, particularly in Darfur.
“Most health facilities have been looted, damaged or destroyed. In West Darfur, the health system is at a standstill,” she lamented.
On the other side of the country, in Port Sudan, “health facilities are receiving 2 to 4 times more patients than they are used to treating,” she added, also describing the fight against cholera.