A total of 638,000 people are suffering from famine in Sudan. However, another 8.1 million are on its verge.
Famine has spread to five new areas in war-torn Sudan. This follows from Tuesday’s report of the Integrated Classification of Food Safety Phases (IPC) initiative, which is referred to by the AFP agency, writes TASR.
In August, the IPC declared a famine in the Zamzam refugee camp in the Sudanese state of North Darfur. However, the famine has since spread to three other refugee camps in the region, according to the IPC. It also occurred in the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan.
A declaration of famine occurs when 20 percent of the population suffers from an acute lack of food, 30 percent of children are acutely malnourished, and two people out of 10,000 die of hunger every day. Famine according to IPC criteria has been declared only twice before. In Somalia in 2011 and in South Sudan in 2017.
For more than a year and a half, Sudan has been wracked by a civil war between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF). Tens of thousands of people have died since the fighting began, and the conflict has driven 12 million people from their homes. More than 9 million are internally displaced. At the same time, both sides of the conflict are blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees and affected residents.
In its report from two weeks ago, the humanitarian organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) described the current situation in Sudan as “the largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded”. According to the IRC, there are more than 30 million people in a critical situation.
