World’s worst humanitarian crisis looms in Sudan: WFP

WITH the war in Sudan entering its 12th month, it is also on track to become the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, leaving thousands dead and over eight million people displaced and food insecure, the World Food Programme (WFP) has said.

It is something of return to the War in Darfur, also known as the Land Cruiser War, of February 2003 to August 2020.

During that period, the Sudan Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement, as the main rebel groups, fought against the Government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur’s non-Arab population.

In retaliation, the government attacked Darfur’s non-Arabs.

The war resulted in more than two million deaths and four million displaced people.

This time, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, is engaged in battle with the de facto head of state, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s Sudan Armed Forces.

Both Dagalo and Al-Burhan were perpetrators in the Darfur conflict and worked together to dislodge Omar alBashir in 2020.

Now their battle for supremacy has torn Sudan apart, causing a humanitarian crisis that is not getting as much attention from the world compared to the Darfur crisis.

“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world's largest hunger crisis and the world rallied to respond. But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten.

“Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake,” said the WFP’s executive director, Cindy McCain.

It estimates “fewer than one in 20 people in Sudan can afford a full meal”.

The WFP said 18 million people were acutely food insecure, with five million going hungry in Sudan.

The situation is made worse due to humanitarian relief workers being underfunded and restricted in their movements because of ongoing violence and intervention from warring parties.

South Sudan has received the most refugees fleeing from Sudan.

Aid agencies said there could be 600 000 refugees in South Sudanese camps.

From that demographic “one in every five children in border transit centres is malnourished,” the WFP added.

The food crisis is not restricted to Sudan; it impacts more than 25 million people throughout Sudan, South Sudan and Chad.

McCain was in South Sudan at the weekend and saw first-hand the suffering of refugees who fled from Sudan.

I met mothers and children who have fled for their lives not once, but multiple times and now hunger is closing in on them.

“The consequences of inaction go far beyond a mother unable to feed her child and will shape the region for years to come,” she said.

Uganda also takes in refugees from Sudan.

According to the UN, more than 15 000 Sudanese refugees were in Uganda and constituted 40% of the refugee population. —