In a dire warning issued on Wednesday, non-governmental organization Save the Children revealed that nearly 230,000 children and pregnant or postpartum women in Sudan are on the brink of starvation. The organization also reported that over 2.9 million children are currently suffering from malnutrition, with 729,000 under the age of 5 experiencing severe malnutrition, the deadliest form of hunger.
According to Arif Noor, the local director of Save the Children, the consequences of the ongoing conflict in Sudan are extending over the long term. He highlighted the impact of the previous year’s absence of the agricultural season, stating that “no food today and no seeds today mean there will be no food tomorrow.”
“The cycle of hunger continues to worsen, with no end in sight but with more misery,” Noor emphasized. Currently, more than half of the Sudanese population, including 14 million children, are in desperate need of humanitarian aid to survive, according to the United Nations.
Since April 2023, an armed conflict has been raging between the Sudanese army, led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dogalo.
International reports indicate that the fighting has resulted in the death of over 12,000 civilians and the displacement of more than 8.1 million people within Sudan and to neighboring countries, according to statistics from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan (OCHA).