The civil war in Sudan has led to famine now prevailing in the large refugee camp Zamzam with 500,000 people outside el-Fasher in Darfur.
The 16-month-long civil war and restrictions on aid deliveries were the cause, stated the Famine Review Committee (FRC) – a UN-affiliated expert panel.
The panel also stated that the humanitarian disaster risks getting out of control. It could become both larger and deadlier than the last major famine 13 years ago, warn experts.
10 million on the run
The humanitarian disaster in Sudan threatens to engulf the entire region, warned UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency on Friday.
Displaced women, children, and men are dying of hunger, malnutrition, and diseases, said Mamadou Dian Balde, UNHCR's regional refugee coordinator for the situation in Sudan.
With horrific violations of human rights, the world's most acute humanitarian disaster is growing and deepening every day and threatens to engulf the entire region.
The war – a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – has forced 10 million people from their homes.
Happened twice before
While most of the world was focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and in the Middle East, the war in Sudan quickly grew into the world's largest humanitarian crisis. Large parts of the country are affected by acute hunger.
The UN-affiliated expert panel FRC uses a scientific scale to determine the degree of famine prevailing in a population or area.
The panel has only confirmed such a state at two previous occasions since its formation 20 years ago: in South Sudan in 2017 and in Somalia in 2011.
The last major famine, in Somalia, is estimated to have killed a quarter of a million people in 2011, half of whom were children under five years old.
Correction: In an earlier version, the number of years since the UN panel confirmed famine was incorrectly stated.
Moa Persson/TT
Facts: The war in Sudan
TTTT
Fighting in Sudan broke out in April last year and is between arch-rivals General Abd al-Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who is the leader of the militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
RSF was formed in 2013 from the janjawid militias – armed groups that Sudan's former dictator Omar al-Bashir had sent out to spread terror and quell the uprising in conflict-ridden Darfur in western Sudan in the early 2000s.
Both parties have been accused of war crimes.
Sources: AFP and AP
