The IPC report describes famine in five areas, including Sudan’s largest refugee camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province.
A famine is spreading in Sudan War between the army and a paramilitary group, a United Nations-backed global hunger monitoring group says.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee released a report on Tuesday highlighting famine in five areas, including Sudan’s largest refugee camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province.
Famine was confirmed in Abu Shouk and al-Salam, two camps for internally displaced people in el-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, and in residential and displaced communities in the Nuba Mountains in South Sudan, according to the report.
The five-member committee also noted that the famine, first identified in August, is likely to spread to another five areas – Um Kadadah, Melit, el-Fasher, Tawisha and al-Lait – by May. In addition, an additional 17 areas in Sudan at risk of famine have been identified.
According to the IPC report, 24.6 million Sudanese – half the population – are suffering from acute food insecurity.
“(The war) has triggered unprecedented mass displacement, economic collapse, collapse of essential social services, severe societal disruption and poor access to humanitarian assistance,” the report said.
The IPC, an independent body funded by Western nations, is made up of more than a dozen UN agencies, aid groups and governments that use its monitoring as a global reference for analyzing food and nutrition crises.
The report was released even as the Sudanese government continued to disrupt the IPC process for analyzing food shortages. On Monday, the government announced it would suspend its participation in the global hunger monitoring system, saying the IPC was publishing “unreliable reports that undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and dignity.”
Sudan has been rocked by a 20-month war that has claimed lives more than 24,000 people According to the United Nations, over 14 million people – about 30 percent of the population – have been displaced from their homes. An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have defected to neighboring countries, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.
The war began in April 2023 as long-simmering tensions between the military and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces Open fighting broke out in the capital Khartoum before spreading to other urban areas and the western Darfur region.
According to the United Nations and human rights groups, the conflict was marked by atrocities, including ethnically motivated killings and rape. The International Criminal Court investigates alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In its report, the IPC added that hostilities in conflict areas can significantly impact agriculture and cause workers to abandon their crops. Farms also suffered from the looting and killing of livestock.
“Displaced households, particularly those living in settlements and public buildings, are unlikely to benefit significantly from the harvest,” it said.
Dervla Cleary, a senior emergency and rehabilitation officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said the situation in Sudan was “just terrible.”
“In a world like today, this is unacceptable,” Cleary told The Associated Press. “We must stop the violence so that people have access to food, water, health, nutrition and agriculture.”
Sudan is the third country to declare famine in the last 15 years. The other two are South Sudan and Somalia.
