Orlando Sentinel

After a year of war in Sudan, mass hunger deaths feared

- By Samy Magdy

CAIRO — On a clear night a year ago in Sudan, a dozen heavily armed fighters broke into Omaima Farouq’s house in an upscale neighborho­od in the capital, Khartoum. At gunpoint, they whipped and slapped the woman, and terrorized her children. Then they expelled them from the fenced two-story house.

“Since then, our life has been ruined,” the 45-yearold schoolteac­her said. “Everything has changed in this year.”

Farouq, who is a widow, and her four children now live in a small village outside the central city of Wad Madani, 85 miles southeast of Khartoum. They depend on aid from villagers and philanthro­pists since internatio­nal aid groups can’t reach the village in this northeast African nation that borders Egypt.

Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, ever since tensions between its military and the paramilita­ry group Rapid Support Forces exploded into street clashes in the capital in mid-April 2023. The fighting spread across the country.

The conflict has been overshadow­ed by the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which since October has caused a massive humanitari­an crisis for Palestinia­ns and a threat of famine in the territory.

But relief workers warn that Sudan is hurtling toward an even larger-scale calamity of starvation, with potential mass death in coming months. Food production and distributi­on networks have broken down, and aid agencies are unable to reach the worststric­ken regions.

The conflict also has had widespread reports of atrocities, including killings, displaceme­nt and rape.

Justin Brady, head of the

U.N. humanitari­an coordinati­on office for Sudan, warned that potentiall­y tens or even hundreds of thousands could die from malnutriti­on-related causes.

“This is going to get very ugly very quickly unless we can overcome the resource challenges and the access challenges,” Brady said.

The world, he said, needs to take fast action to pressure the two sides for a stop in fighting and raise money for the U.N. humanitari­an effort.

But the internatio­nal community has paid little attention. The U.N. humanitari­an campaign needs $2.7 billion this year to get food, health care and other supplies to 24 million people in Sudan — nearly half its population of 51 million. So far, funders have given $145 million, about 5%, according to the humanitari­an office, known as OCHA.

The “level of internatio­nal neglect is shocking,” Christos Christou, president of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said in a recent statement.

The situation in fighting on the ground has been deteriorat­ing.

The military, headed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan

Dagalo, have carved up Khartoum and trade indiscrimi­nate fire at each other. RSF forces have overrun much of Darfur, while Burhan has moved the government and his headquarte­rs to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.

The Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence Against Women, a government organizati­on, documented at least 159 cases of rape and gang rape the past year, almost all in Khartoum and the western region of Darfur. The organizati­on’s head, Sulima Ishaq Sharif, said this figure represents the tip of the iceberg since many victims don’t speak out for fear of reprisal or the stigma of rape.

In 2021, Burhan and Dagalo were uneasy allies who led a military coup. They toppled an internatio­nally recognized civilian government that was supposed to steer Sudan’s democratic transition after the 2019 military overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir amid a popular uprising. Burhan and Dagalo subsequent­ly fell out in a struggle for power.

Both sides, the military and RSF, have committed serious violations of internatio­nal law, killing civilians and destroying vital infrastruc­ture, said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch.

 ?? AP ?? People board a truck June 19, 2023, as they leave Khartoum, Sudan. The country has been torn by war between Sudan’s military and the paramilita­ry Rapid Support Forces.
AP People board a truck June 19, 2023, as they leave Khartoum, Sudan. The country has been torn by war between Sudan’s military and the paramilita­ry Rapid Support Forces.

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