The World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday that more than 19 million people are facing acute hunger in Sudan, while famine continues to threaten parts of the country amid ongoing violence, displacement and economic collapse.
Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Carl Skau, following his visit to Darfur, noted that communities have been cut off from food, markets and aid, and children have been forced to miss school for three years, leaving their future in jeopardy.
Sudan remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with nearly two-thirds of the population in desperate need of assistance to stay alive.
He pointed out that the World Food Programme and the humanitarian community possess the expertise and capacity to expand the scope of their support, but to achieve that, they need to allow humanitarian aid to pass freely, safely and on a wide scale, and they need much greater funding.
He further added that the international community has failed to prevent this conflict and put an end to it, just as it has failed to protect the Sudanese people from the atrocities they endure.
The World Food Programme gives top priority to famine areas and hard-to-reach areas, where it reaches 3.5 million people monthly through emergency food aid, cash transfers and nutritional support.
Two-thirds of the people assisted by the Programme are in Darfur and Kordofan, the regions where famine has been officially declared and where the conflict is most intense.
Over the past year, more than two million children under five and more than 500,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls have received food assistance.
The Programme’s food assistance has decreased by 14% since last January compared to last year, as a result of resource shortages.
The Programme urgently needs more than USD600 million to maintain its life-saving operations in Sudan over the next six months.
