Famine is tightening its hold on Sudan’s war-battered western Darfur, U.N.-backed food security experts warned Thursday, as a nearly three-year conflict continues to starve communities, uproot millions and choke off humanitarian aid.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring body, said famine-level acute malnutrition has now been recorded in the North Darfur towns of Umm Baru and Kernoi, areas destabilized by intense fighting and mass displacement near the Chad border.
While the IPC stopped short of declaring a full famine, it said key nutrition thresholds have been surpassed, signaling a sharp rise in the risk of excess deaths.
“These alarming rates raise serious concern that neighboring areas may already be experiencing similarly catastrophic conditions,” the IPC said.
Sudan has been engulfed in war since April 2023, when a power struggle between the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) exploded into open conflict.
