UN Calls for $4.1 Billion To Stave off Mass Famine in Sudan

The United Nations has appealed for $4.1 billion in funds to assist civilians in war-torn Sudan and in neighboring countries hosting Sudanese refugees, amid warnings that a devastating famine is looming in which hundreds of thousands of people could starve to death by next year.

The UN estimates that 18 million people, double the number from this time last year, are currently facing emergency levels of hunger in Sudan. More than half the country’s 25 million people are reliant on humanitarian assistance.

The children’s aid agency UNICEF said that 700,000 children in Sudan are likely to suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year, with 3.5 million children projected to suffer from severe malnutrition.

A UNICEF spokesman said that without improved assistance, tens of thousands of children are likely to die this year.

Water-borne diseases such as cholera, which causes diarrhea and leads to further malnutrition, have also been taking a toll, especially among children. A cholera outbreak affected thousands of people and caused at least 224 deaths in one region of Sudan in December, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Since last April, a bitter civil war has been raging in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces, under Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, under Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagaolo, generally known as Hemedti. Millions of people have been displaced inside Sudan and about 1.5 million people have fled to neighboring countries.