More than 600,000 people in Sudan are “on the brink of starvation” as famine stalks the war-torn country, the United Nations has warned.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Thursday that famine had taken hold in five areas across the country, including Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur, where the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials, MSF) were forced to suspend operations amid escalating violence earlier this week.
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, Turk said Sudan was “looking into the abyss”, warning that famine could hit five more areas in the next three months, with a further 17 considered at risk in what he described as the “world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe”.
“Sudan is a powder keg, on the verge of a further explosion into chaos, and at increasing risk of atrocity crimes and mass deaths from famine,” he said, urging immediate action to “end the war, deliver emergency aid, and get agriculture back on its feet”.
MSF suspended operations in and around Zamzam, where half a million people have sought refuge, on Monday, with WFP following suit on Wednesday as fighting intensified between the military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group. (Aljazeera)