Baku, February 18, AZERTAC

More than one in two people in war-torn Sudan have too little to eat, famine “is taking hold” and sexual violence is rife, the UN’s top aid official said on Monday, as the global body launched an appeal for $6 billion to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in the devastated country and beyond.

According to the official UN website, Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said that Civilians are paying the highest price, shelling, airstrikes are continuing unabated, killing and injuring civilians, damaging and destroying critical infrastructure, including hospitals.

“An epidemic of sexual violence rages,” he warned, adding that children are being killed and injured, amid reports of intensifying fighting in South Kordofan in recent weeks - “another state in which famine conditions have recently been confirmed”.

Speaking in Geneva, Fletcher explained that the UN 2025 humanitarian and refugee response plans for Sudan aim to assist nearly 26 million people inside the country and across the region who face a desperate situation.

After nearly two years of conflict, a staggering 12 million people in Sudan and across borders have been displaced.

The UN aid chief said that he welcomed a conversation just days ago with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces – “about the importance of keeping Adre crossing open [from Chad]. But this is a fraction of what is needed and each movement only happens after complex engagement and bureaucratic processes,” he stressed.

According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), famine has been confirmed in more than 10 locations in Sudan; another 17 are on the brink of famine.

The situation is a “collective failure that shames the global community”, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain told the Geneva meeting via video link.

“This is a full-scale hunger crisis and I’m going to call it a catastrophe”, Ms. McCain continued. “The civil war has killed thousands, uprooted millions and set the country ablaze, and yet it’s forgotten,” despite being “the epicentre of the world’s largest and most severe hunger crisis ever”.

Highlighting the fact that Sudan is also the world’s biggest displacement emergency, UN refugee agency chief (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, condemned the continuing “military logic” of the rival armies that have waged war against each other since April 2023.

“The logic is, let’s achieve victory, let’s make advances, let’s progress militarily,” he said, referring to the Sudanese Armed Forces - led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan - and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

“The logic continues to neglect the situation of ordinary Sudanese that are killed, displaced and suffer all sorts of hardship.”

Echoing Fletcher’s observation that it might be difficult to understand why the UN and its partners were issuing such a large appeal for funding at a time of deep cuts to overseas aid by UN Member States, the UN refugee agency chief explained that needs were immense, with one in three Sudanese uprooted by the violence.

“Social systems, health systems, education - kids haven’t gone to school, almost 13 million people are displaced,” he said.

Across Sudan, women and girls continue to suffer through appalling patterns of conflict-related sexual violence,” and young men have been forcibly recruited to fight, Fletcher noted. “The collapse of the education system has compounded the risks faced by Sudanese girls: child marriage, gender-based violence.”

Although access “remains heavily constrained, particularly where the fighting is most acute”, the UN relief chief insisted that the appeal offered “a lifeline to millions” once the fighting stops, as he appealed for better access “by land, sea and air to those who need help”.

Agricultural production has also been decimated, driving up prices by 500 per cent in some areas, resulting in millions of displaced who have no access basic food staples.

With $1.8 billion in support last year, humanitarian organizations reached more than 15.6 million people across Sudan. Assistance included food and livelihoods support for more than 13 million people as well as water, sanitation and hygiene support, health and nutrition, and shelter assistance.

Humanitarian organizations working in neighbouring countries provided lifesaving assistance delivering food to over a million people, medical support to half a million and protection services to over 800,000.

For its part, WFP reached more than eight million people with lifesaving aid in 2024 but continues to face widespread access constraints caused by the fighting.

In 2024, more than 50,000 of the most vulnerable women and girls received dignity kids and over 225,000 people received GBV-services such as mental health or psychological support.

Among the biggest challenges now are protection of female staff and access to communities as well as the overall funding crisis.