Without critical action, nearly 230,000 children and new mothers in Sudan are “likely to die from hunger”, Save the Children warned on Wednesday.
The fighting between Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, his former deputy and commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed thousands and displaced eight million people since April 2023, the United Nations says.
The bombing and destruction of fields and factories have plunged Sudan into “one of the worst” nutrition situations in the world, said Arif Noor, Save the Children’s country director in Sudan.
“Nearly 230,000 children, pregnant women and new mothers could die in the coming months,” the organisation said.
The charity further said, “More than 2.9 million children in Sudan are acutely malnourished and an additional 729,000 children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition – the most dangerous and deadly form of extreme hunger”.
It warned that “about 222,000 severely malnourished children and more than 7,000 new mothers are likely to die” under the current levels of funding which “only covers 5.5 per cent” of Sudan’s total needs.
Cycle of hunger
Noor warned the situation would only worsen as the consequences of the current fighting take hold.
“No planting last year means no food today. No planting today means no food tomorrow. The cycle of hunger is getting worse and worse with no end in sight – only more misery,” he said.
Already, more than half of all Sudanese, including 14 million children, require humanitarian assistance to survive, the United Nations says.
The UN has described a “climate of sheer terror”, reporting the use of heavy artillery in densely populated urban areas, sexual violence as a weapon of war and the destruction of hospitals and schools.
The United States has accused both sides of war crimes and alleged the RSF has carried out ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.