Without urgent humanitarian assistance, tens of thousands of people in Sudan may die of famine in coming weeks, UN officials warned during a Geneva press briefing Tuesday. 

Their calls for a ceasefire to enable humanitarian assistance to flow more freely came on the eve of peace talks scheduled to take place in Geneva with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that  mounted a 15 month insurgency against the Sudanese government – leading to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. 

At the beginning of August, a UN Committee declared that at least 100,00 households in Sudan’s  Zamzam refugee camp near the town of Al Fasher, in the Darfur region west of Khartoum, were facing famine conditions (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – an extreme and rare claim, Health Policy Watch reported.

But that could be only the beginning, warned UNICEF Spokesperson, James Elder, in the briefing.

If nothing changes, “tens of thousands of Sudanese children may die over the coming months and that is by no means a worst-case scenario,” Elder said. “Any disease outbreak and we will see mortality skyrocket.”

”Beyond Zamzam, there are another 13 areas in Sudan that are on the brink of famine, and they are home to the staggering 143,000 children already suffering the most lethal type of malnutrition,” stressed Elder.

“Famine in Zamzam camp is the first determination of famine by the Famine Review Committee in more than seven years, and it’s only the third famine determination since that monitoring system was created 20 years ago,” he added, underling the gravity of the situation. 

Despite its large scope, the crisis in Sudan has received surprisingly little international attention. 

It’s “a crisis of neglect,” Elder said, noting the lukewarm international response. As of mid-year, UNICEF had recruited only 21% of the estimated $317 million budgeted for humanitarian aid in Sudan and neighbouring countries where displaced Sudanese have fled.

“We must confront painful truths. The international community is not doing enough. The crisis in Sudan demands more than our sympathy, and it demands our action,” said Mohammed Refaat, Chief of Mission for Sudan at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “We must go beyond words and pledges,” he stressed.

Famine conditions

Famine is the most severe phase of the IPC. Dubbed IPC Stage 5, it means at least one in five households faces extreme deprivation of food. To declare an area to be in a famine, the IPC committee also has to confirm that over 30% of the children there are acutely malnourished and that in a population of 10,000, more than two people die every day.

As access and data collection for humanitarian organizations in Sudan is limited, the easier-quantifiable assessment for the Zamzam camp, home of over 500,000 internationally displaced persons, is considered a bellwether for many other areas in North Darfur, a vast region of Sudan stretching along its western border.

The area where the camp is located has been besieged for months by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that broke away from the Sudanese Armed Forces which enjoys backing from Russia’s Wagner Group, has been fighting government forces since April 2023.

One in five Sudanese have been displaced since the crisis began. And one-half of Sudanese, some 26.6 million people, are food insecure, World Food Programme (WFP) data shows. Fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces is at the root of the food crisis.

Rampant sexual violence

Rampant sexual violence is also an issue, Elder noted. 

“Yesterday in Khartoum, I spoke to a senior medical worker who…has had direct contact with hundreds of women and girls, some as young as eight years old, who have been raped,” Elder said. Sexual violence is increasing, he stated, especially in places where UNICEF and other organisations are denied a humanitarian presence.

Due to travel and logistic constraints as well as in conflict zones, about 1.78 million people were denied crucial humanitarian assistance in June, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA).

An “immediate ceasefire” and unimpeded and safe humanitarian access is needed to ensure aid can reach those who need it, Elder highlighted at the press briefing.

On Wednesday, ceasefire talks in Geneva, initiated a month ago by the United States, are set to convene with only the RSF representatives, despite the absence of the Sudanese Army.

The US has decided to go ahead with the talks as planned despite that – and the failure of previous attempts at negotiations. The first round, planned as a separate engagement of each party with the US envoy, is expected to last up to ten days – even though only the RSF is currently present.

“We will move forward with our international partners to reach […] a concrete action plan about how we can advance to a cessation of violence and have full humanitarian access, and a monitoring enforcement mechanism. These are long past due,” Tom Perriello, the US special envoy for Sudan told Voice of America.

Image Credits: UNICEF/UNI530171/Mohamdeen, IPC , UNOCHA.