12 million Sudanese to face “acute” food insecurity: agency
June 22, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – Nearly 12 million people in Sudan are likely to face severe hunger as the country’s food crisis deepens, an aid agency warned.
Those likely to be affected, Save the Children said on Wednesday, include children under the age of 15 who reportedly form 40% of the population in Sudan.
The latest United Nations figures, the agency said, show an increase of two million people since previous figures were released, when 9.6 million people were acutely food insecure, and highlight the severity of the hunger crisis in the country.
“The hunger crisis is hitting Sudan hard and the Sudanese people have suffered long enough”, said Arshad Malik, Save the Children’s Country Director in Sudan.
According to the agency, the war in Ukraine is pushing up wheat prices, making a stable part of the national diet unaffordable to many people, while recurring intercommunal conflicts in places such as West Darfur have made this situation worse, as children and families are forced to flee their homes and farms.
“The international community must immediately increase the resources dedicated to the humanitarian response and social protection programming, along with the longer-term development assistance needed to prevent such crises from recurring,” stressed Malik.
The lasted Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says nearly one-quarter of the entire population of Sudan will struggle to access food in coming months, including 3.1 million people facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC 4).
Displaced children and their families, refugees, and people directly impacted by conflict are likely to be most vulnerable to hunger, it noted, adding that approximately half a million children already suffer from severe acute malnutrition in Sudan annually.
The ongoing crisis in Sudan, the aid agency said, has been exacerbated by a worsening economic situation, recurring violence throughout many states, a poor harvest, and the global price shocks in grains and other food commodities.
Sudan is also one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate variability and change, with increasing droughts and unpredictable flooding over the past few decades putting severe stress on the country’s agriculture systems.
(ST)