Nearly 26 million people in Sudan are not getting enough to eat, UN says
Nearly 26 million people in war-torn Sudan are not getting enough to eat and 750,000 people are “just one step away from famine”, the UN reported on Tuesday.
News Center- Nearly 26 million people in war-torn Sudan are not getting enough to eat, the UN reported on Tuesday, citing its humanitarian affairs office, OCHA.
“To give you an example, that is equivalent to the entire population of Australia,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists attending his daily briefing in New York on Tuesday.
He said OCHA “continues to be extremely alarmed by the worsening food situation in the country” and the 26 million figure includes 750,000 people who are “just one step away from famine”.
In Sudan, rising food prices, access challenges, and the impact of conflict are compounding people's limited access to food. Last month, the price of local food increased by 16 per cent when compared to May and is 120 per cent higher than in June 2023.
“People's hardship is only set to worsen as the rainy season takes hold,” Stéphane Dujarric said, warning that “people in Sudan are facing a worst-case scenario” while humanitarians there urgently need access via all possible routes to avert a further deterioration of the situation.
He also highlighted the crucial need for financial support, noting that a $2.7 billion plan to cover humanitarian operations this year is only 30 percent funded.
Sudan is experiencing the world's worst displacement crisis and one of the world's worst hunger crises because of the 15 months of armed conflicts between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
As of May 2024, more than 16,000 people had been reported killed in Sudan's conflict, though the actual figure is likely to be considerably higher. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an estimated 7,720,119 individuals have been displaced internally within Sudan since April 15,2023. Sudan is today the world's largest child displacement crisis, with over 4.6 million children who have fled their homes since April 2023, UNICEF said in April 2024. One in every five people in Sudan is experiencing emergency-level food insecurity, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).