CAIRO: Some 19.5 million Sudanese people, or more than 40 percent of the population, are facing acute hunger, according to a report by a global hunger monitor, as the contours of a war that has created the world’s worst hunger crisis shift.
The spread of hunger and famine has become a hallmark of the three-year-old war in Sudan, which is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people as well as devastating the economy and agriculture and displacing 14 million.
The estimate by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is slightly lower than last fall’s estimate of 21.2 million people, but some 14 areas in the country’s North Darfur, South Darfur, and South Kordofan states remain at risk of famine, where 135,000 people face “catastrophic” levels of hunger.
Those areas include the cities of Al-Fashir and Kadugli, judged last year to be experiencing famine largely as a result of sieges by the Rapid Support Forces. But in October, the RSF completed their takeover of Al-Fashir, largely emptying the city, while this year the army broke the siege of Kadugli.
Drone warfare has seemed to replace such ground campaigns as the leading mode of warfare in Sudan. Fighting rages on in the Kordofan region as well as Blue Nile state, with drones killing at least 880 civilians since January according to the UN’s human rights office. Drones have targeted civilian infrastructure including markets, hospitals, and power stations.
