UN food agency says it's hearing of starvation-related deaths in Sudan

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - The World Food Program (WFP) on Friday said that it was receiving reports of people dying of starvation in Sudan, urging parties in the conflict to ensure that food assistance can get through.

"At the moment, 18 million people were facing acute food insecurity, twice as many as a year earlier," Leni Kinzli, the UN agency’s spokesperson in Sudan, told a press briefing in Geneva via video link. "Hunger would increase from May on, when the lean season started, and crops became less available."

She cited reports of people “dying of starvation, but those reports had to be corroborated. Millions of people could soon slip into the catastrophic levels of hunger, which could be described as famine."

She called on parties to the "gruesome" conflict, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), to provide "unimpeded, unobstructed, safe access" for humanitarian agencies to people in need.

Some 3.6 million children under age 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition, she said, adding that the exact number of hungry children is "impossible" to know due to the lack of access to the most affected areas.

- WFP can only help 10% of hungriest people in Sudan

Kinzli stressed that the UN agency is currently able to "deliver food to only 10% of the hungriest people in Sudan" as the other 90% are largely stuck in conflict zones.

Lack of humanitarian access and unnecessary hurdles are making most food distribution "impossible," she said.

Sudan has been mired by fighting between the army, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the country’s ruling Sovereign Council, and the RSF paramilitary group since April 2023.