More than half a million people in Sudan’s North Darfur region are now suffering from famine conditions, the Famine Review Committee (FRC) of the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) announced Thursday. 

The escalating violence in Sudan between government troops and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which broke away from the Sudanese Armed Forces in 2023, is at the root of the food crisis. 

Meanwhile, armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in Gaza continue to perpetuate two more of the world’s other most acute hunger and food crises.

In Sudan, the FRC assessed the conditions in the Zamzam refugee camp near El Fasher town, where some 600,000 people have taken refuge, as experiencing famine risks, the worst of the IPC classification levels. 

Famine is declared when at least 20% of an area’s population suffers from extreme lack of food and hunger (IPC level 5), facing actual starvation. Though the IPC analyzed only the Zanzam camp, the food crisis is likely of a similar scope in other regions of North Darfur, said the IPC.

The camp, set in the southwest of the country, has been besieged by the RSF for months, and famine risks will likely remain severe through the end of October 2024, the IPC assessment concluded. 

In Sudan, 26.6 million people, more than half of the population, are food insecure, according to the World Food Programme (WFP) data. Fighting between the country’s army and RSF, said to be backed by Russia’s Wagner Group, continues to impede the operations of aid organisations. Over 10 million Sudanese are internally displaced and 2 million abroad – the largest number in the world, according to a WHO update July 17.

In Khartoum, free kitchens operating there were forced to shut down in mid-July, due to a lack of funding and food supplies.

The RSF, a rebranded name for the Sudanese Janjaweed militia, has been accused of war crimes over the past decade in Darfur, as well as South Kordofan, and Khartoum, according to groups like Human Rights Watch. The violations include burning villages, raping women, unlawful detentions, and repurposing hospitals and churches as military shields. 

DRC has the largest number of people in need of humanitarian aid in the world 

In the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, meanwhile, more than one million children are at risk from acute malnutrition as rising violence perpetrated by armed militias drives up needs among millions of displaced people, the World Health Organization said on July 12.

The DRC currently has the highest number of people in need of humanitarian aid in the entire world, with 25.4 million people affected, Dr Adelheid Marschang, WHO Senior Emergency Officer, said at a UN press briefing in mid-July. 

Despite this, in the DRC “underfunding is indeed severe,” said Dr Adelheid Marschang, WHO Senior Emergency Officer, in a press briefing July 12.

The WHO is aiming for a $30 mln budget “to address the situation till the end of the year,” she said, but could only access about $6 mln on the day of the briefing.

In the eastern DRC provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, where the rebel M-23 militia, reportedly backed by Rwanda, has made significant inroads, 5.4 million people are food insecure, while almost three million children across the country are severely malnourished, according to the World Food Programme. 

With floods having destroyed this season’s crops, the prospects for next year are even more grim. Unless immediate action is taken, over one million children will suffer from acute malnutrition, the WHO warned.

In Gaza, 96% of the population still faces crisis levels of hunger

In Gaza, where Israel continues its nine-month military campaign to crush the Islamic Hamas organization following Hamas’ deadly 7 October 2023 raids on Israel, WHO officials have warned that one in four people remain at risk of starvation – even if previous forecasts of widespread famine by July did not yet materialize.  

Some 96% of the enclave’s 2 million residents are facing crisis levels of hunger (IPC 5) – according to the World Food Programme. 

Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing into Gaza in mid-May has paralyzed the flow of health supplies and humanitarian aid from Egypt – forcing exclusive reliance on Israeli aid crossing points.  

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) was forced to reduce food rations in Gaza City in May to ensure broader coverage for people who have been newly displaced after new Israeli incursions in the north and south.  

In June, WFP provided more than a million people in Gaza with food assistance, and more than 153,845 individuals in the West Bank received cash-based transfers.

Image Credits: MSF.org, Domenico-de-ga, UNRWA .