Children are dying of malnutrition in Sudan

Children are dying of malnutrition in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher, and cholera is widespread, reported the BBC on 13^th August.

“Our children are dying before our eyes,” women in a community kitchen in el-Fasher told the outlet. “We don’t know what to do. They are innocent. They have nothing to do with the army or [its paramilitary rival] the Rapid Support Forces. Our suffering is worse than what you can imagine.”

Food prices have soared, and people can only buy one meal with what used to cover a week’s worth of food. International aid organisations have called out the “calculated use of starvation as a weapon of war.”

A surge in cholera cases is compounding suffering, spreading through camps of displaced people. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said there have been nearly 100,000 cases and 2,470 deaths, with the epicentre currently near el-Fasher.

The Sudanese army has been battling the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for over two years. El-Fasher, in western Darfur, is in one of the most brutal frontlines in the conflict.

The paramilitaries stepped up the fight for el-Fasher after losing the capital Khartoum earlier this year.

In the north and centre of the country, the army has taken back territory from RSF, and food and medical aid are alleviating civilian suffering. In the west and south of Sudan, suffering is increasing.

Volunteers at the Matbakh-al-Khair community kitchen are turning ambaz, which is normally fed to animals, into porridge. There is nothing else to feed the children, “no flour of bread,” according to the kitchen manager.

The UN has appealed for a humanitarian pause to allow food convoys into the city, but the RSF is yet to give clearance, believing a truce would be used to deliver supplies and arms to the Sudanese army instead.

Medical facilities are unable to cope, and children within are “just waiting for their death,” according to Dr Ibrahim Abdullah Khater, a paediatrician at the Al Saudi Hospital.

BBC, Maghrebi