Halting famine in Sudan requires political will and leadership, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Tuesday, as speakers urged the warring parties to heed the international community’s repeated calls to stop fighting and avoid a further deterioration of the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
“Our warnings have not been heard,” said Stephen Omollo, Assistant Executive Director for Workplace and Management of the World Food Programme (WFP), recalling its previous alerts about a widespread collapse in food security across Sudan. He noted that WFP’s Famine Review Committee has concluded that there is famine in Zamzam camp near El Fasher in North Darfur and that other areas in Darfur and elsewhere are at high risk, with more than half of the country’s population facing crisis levels of hunger.
The Council must ensure that “this forgotten crisis” receives the “political and diplomatic attention it desperately needs”, he said, pointing to the failure of both the Government and rebel forces to meet their obligations under international humanitarian law by routinely blocking requests for cross-line clearances and imposing restrictions on cross-border routes.
To make matters worse, “Sudan is critically underfunded,” he said, highlighting the need for increased and flexible funding to support the rapid scale-up of the relief operations “if we are to save lives”.
Also briefing the 15-member organ was Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who cited a staggering 26 million people in acute hunger — three times the population of New York City. When famine happens, “it means we are too late… we, the international community, have failed,” she said, lamenting: “This is an entirely man-made crisis — and a shameful stain on our collective conscience”.
Relief supplies for people in Zamzam are readily available in eastern Chad but heavy rains have flooded the Tine crossing — the only cross-border route currently permitted to use between east Chad and Darfur after the Sudanese authorities revoked permission for the use of the Adre crossing, which would be the most effective route. “Assistance delayed is assistance denied,” she said, emphasizing that “it is still possible to stop this freight train of suffering that is charging through Sudan”.
The Sudan humanitarian appeal is just 32 percent funded — having received $874 million out of the $2.7 billion needed, she noted.
In the ensuing discussion, delegates called for an immediate ceasefire between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces as it remains the only sustainable solution to preventing the further spread of famine. They also supported the UN officials’ demands for rapid, safe, and unimpeded humanitarian access across Sudan through all possible routes and more financial resources.
Sudan’s delegate, however, said that the reports of famine in Zamzam and other camps are “not true”, noting that the conditions in these camps do not meet the metrics for the declaration of famine. Holding up pictures of children in Zamzam, he underscored that there are no deaths or starvation among the internally displaced persons in the camp. Further, it is not the Government that is blocking humanitarian aid, he reiterated, attributing the shortage in food and humanitarian assistance to the siege by the Rapid Support Forces.
The delegate of the Russian Federation said that while Sudan is facing serious food challenges and the threats of famine are tangible, they are not linked to a lack of food but logistical and distribution issues. Rather than artificially instrumentalizing the issue of famine, he underlined the need to prioritize the development of agriculture and farmers’ access to markets.