A famine has struck Sudan, a country torn by civil war in northeastern Africa.
According to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF, around 638,000 people are suffering from food shortages. The country has already reported cases of deaths from hunger.
The situation will continue to worsen. Currently, over 24 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, are struggling with food scarcity. According to the UN, famine is defined as an acute form of food crisis, where more than 20% of households experience food shortages, and at least two adults or four children per 10,000 people die daily from malnutrition. Sudan has become the third country in the past 15 years (after South Sudan and Somalia) to declare a famine.
The main cause of this crisis is the civil war. Since April 2023, the country has been embroiled in a fierce power struggle between its leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Over the past 20 months, this war has turned into the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, yet the international community has shown insufficient attention. More than 24,000 people have already died, and over 13 million have become refugees, with 3.2 million fleeing to neighboring countries: Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan.
