U.N. WARNS OF HUNGER CRISIS IN SUDAN
A third of Sudan’ population is currently facing a food crisis due to the compounded impact of climate shocks, political turmoil and rising global food prices, the U.N. food agency said Thursday.
A joint report by the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said that 15 million people face acute food insecurity across all of the East African country’s 18 provinces.
“The combined effects of conflict, climate shocks, economic and political crises, rising costs and poor harvests are pushing millions of people deeper into hunger and poverty,” said Eddie Rowe, WFP’s representative in Sudan.
Living conditions rapidly deteriorated across cashstrapped Sudan since an October military coup sent an already fragile economy into free-fall, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine compounding the economic pain.
Funding levels fall short of meeting humanitarian needs in Sudan, where 40 percent of the population is expected to slip into food insecurity by September, the report said.
“We must act now to avoid increasing hunger levels and to save the lives of those already affected,” Rowe said.
The Oct. 25 military takeover upended Sudan’s transition to democratic rule after three decades of repression and international isolation under autocratic President Omar alBashir. Sudan has been on a fragile path to democracy since a popular uprising forced the military to remove al-Bashir and his Islamist government in April 2019.
There have been weekly protests calling for the military to step down since the October coup. On Thursday, hundreds again marched toward the government headquarters in the capital of Khartoum.
The coup also stalled two years of efforts by the deposed civilian government to overhaul the economy with billions of dollars in loans and aid from major Western governments and international financial institutions. Such support was suspended after the coup.