The warning comes after the release of new data from the CPI, a UN-backed global food security monitoring system, from three towns there – Um Baru and Kernoi and At Tine – indicating “catastrophic” rates of malnutrition.
“Extreme hunger and malnutrition first affect children, the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable,” said UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires. “In Sudan it is spreading… They are children between six months and five years old and their time is running out.”
hunger spreads
The UN agency highlighted that famine thresholds have been exceeded in places that were not previously considered at risk, such as Um Baru and Kernoi.
The conflicts, massive displacements, the collapse of services and the blocking of access, which have caused famine alerts in these localities, exist “in vast areas of Sudan,” Pires insisted.
“If famine looms there, it can spread anywhere.”, he warned.
Pires also warned about the prevalence of diseases as an additional threat to children’s survival:
“These children are not only hungry; almost half of all children in At Tine had been sick in the previous two weeks. Fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections, low vaccination coverage, contaminated water and the collapse of the health system are turning treatable diseases into death sentences for children who are already malnourished.”
He called on the world to “stop looking away” from Sudan’s children, warning that more than half of the young people in Um Baru, northern Darfur, are “wasting away as we watch”.
“That is not a statistic. They are children with names and a future who are being stolen,” said the UNICEF spokesperson.
Almost three years since the war broke out between the once allied Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), 13.6 million people have fled their homes, including 9.1 million displaced within the country.
Healthcare under attack
Dr. Shible Sahbani, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Sudan, told reporters that while the displaced require “urgent” care, the health system has been “devastated by attacks, loss and damage to equipment and supplies, shortages of health personnel and operational funds.”
Since the start of the war in April 2023, WHO has verified 205 attacks on healthcare, resulting in 1,924 deaths and 529 injuries, Dr. Sahbani said.
“These attacks will deprive communities of health care for years, instilling terror in patients and health workers and creating insurmountable barriers to life-saving treatment,” he added. Meanwhile, the country is facing multiple disease outbreaks, including cholera, malaria, dengue and measles.
While WHO and its partners support the response to these outbreaks, Dr Sahbani stressed the need for greater access and protection of health workers and facilities, in accordance with international humanitarian law.
“Patients and healthcare workers should not risk dying while seeking and providing care“he said. “Above all, we ask for peace…Peace is long overdue for Sudan.”
His call echoed that of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, who on Monday again sounded the alarm on the deadly conflict in Sudan, briefing the Human Rights Council in Geneva on the “avoidable human rights catastrophe” that took place in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, in October last year.
Thousands of people were killed there in a matter of days after an 18-month siege of the city, multiple testimonies gathered by Mr. Türk’s office have indicated.
The Kordofans could be next
The new danger is a possible repetition of these abuses in the Kordofan region, he said.
Responding to questions from journalists in Geneva about the involvement of other countries in the conflict, High Commissioner spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani underlined their concerns: “whether they are directly involved, whether there are mercenaries on the ground from different countries, whether they are providing weapons, intelligence, financing or other support, whether they are involved in the political economy of the conflict in Sudan.”