By Tom Staal
From the latest World Food Program report: Sudan’s overall hunger outlook remains dire. More than 21 million people face acute or worse food insecurity, the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) finds. Roughly 375,000 Sudanese face level 5 (IPC 5), or catastrophic hunger, the highest level. Two cities ripped apart by violence – El Fasher in the west and Kadugli in the south – are categorized as in famine. While fighting and drone attacks are still widespread throughout the country, since the fall of El Fasher to the RSF last year it has been especially concentrated in Kordofan.
In mid-February critical humanitarian assistance has finally reached parts of South Kordofan, including Dilling and Kadugli – areas largely cut off from aid for more than two years. WFP transported food to support nearly 70,000 people, including 21,000 mothers and children with specialized nutritious food to prevent malnutrition. With more funding and access, WFP could do twice as much: supporting up to 8 million people each month and helping to more durably reverse the hunger tide. “We need to take a very balanced approach to our operations in Sudan,” says WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response. “On the one hand, we need to be working on famine prevention and responding to people in areas where conflict is active – and pushing for access to deliver food to civilians where they are. But we also need to support the conditions for people to return home. That’s happening in the city of Khartoum and the central Al-Jazira state, where WFP’s food and nutritional assistance reached more than a million people once conflict had subsided. Many people are returning to shattered homes and infrastructure after months of sometimes multiple displacements.”