Sudan: IPC warns of famine risk in 14 areas
With no end in sight for Sudan’s civil war, the world’s leading hunger monitor has warned that an unprecedented number of its people face catastrophic famine risk. The country is also gripped by the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, with over a quarter of its population driven from their homes.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned on June 27th that 14 areas across Sudan face impending famine, if the country’s conflict escalates further, according to Reuters.
The areas purportedly facing famine risk include parts of the capital Khartoum, as well as the Darfur, Kordofan, and El Gezira regions.
War between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militant group in April 2023 in Khartoum, quickly engulfing swaths of the country.
As well as triggering vast food insecurity, the conflict has reignited ethnic violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region and caused the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
As reported by AP, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on June 14th that over 10 million Sudanese people had been internally displaced since the outbreak of war, with a further two mil having been driven abroad.
READ: Internally displaced in Sudan conflict nears 10 million
With some 755,000 people in Sudan facing “catastrophe,” the most severe level of extreme hunger, a total of 8.5 million people are estimated to be experiencing food shortages that could result in malnutrition, death, or require emergency comping strategies.
The IPC is a collaboration of UN agencies, national governments, and aid groups which produces internationally recognized assessments of food crises. Its most extreme warning is Phase 5, with the two levels: catastrophe and then famine.
In its assessment, the IPC said that famine in Sudan could occur with reasonable probability, under a worst-case scenario in the 14 stated areas.
Famine can be declared if at least 20% of the population in an area is suffering extreme food shortages, with at least 30% of children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation, malnutrition, or disease.
READ: Child famine likely to hit war torn Sudan soon, warns UN
Since the IPC warning system was created 20 years ago, famines have only been declared twice: in parts of Somalia in 2011 and South Sudan in 2017.
Reuters / AP
