The main UN food agency warned that families trapped in the Sudanese city besieged in El-Fasher are faced with famine.
The World Food Program (WFP) said that it had not been able to deliver food to the city of the western Darfur region for over a year.
El -Fasher has been surrounded by paramilitary fighters from the rapid support forces (RSF) for almost 16 months – determined to seize the Army of Sudan.
The WFP warning occurs while local activists have already started to report deaths by famine in the city, which houses around 250,000 people.
Sudan’s civil war which broke out in April 2023 created what the UN calls for the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
PAM said severe food shortages had considerably increased the prices of rare supplies to El-Fasher, and have cited information that people ate fodder of animals and food waste to try to survive.
The agency did not appoint the responsible party – but the RSF has reduced commercial roads and blocked the supply lines to the City of Darfur currently controlled by the army.
“Everyone in El-Fasher faces a daily struggle to survive,” said Eric Percet, regional Director of PAM for East and Southern Africa.
“People’s adaptation mechanisms have been completely exhausted by more than two years of war. Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost,” he added.
The agency cited an eight-year-old girl, Sondos, who had fled El-Fasher with five family members.
“In El-Fasher, there was a lot of bombing and hunger. Only hunger and bombs,” said the girl, adding that the family had only survived the millet.
The WFP said that he had trucks responsible for helping food and nutrition ready to leave if she obtained guarantees of safe passage.
He sent such a convoy in early June: but it was attacked, with the army and the RSF blaming himself for the strike.
Since then, the UN has been pushing for a week-long humanitarian truce in El-Fasher.
But it is not clear how the two parties would react to another attempt for a help convoy to break the seat.
Sudan’s civil war has also led to allegations of genocide in Darfur.
More than 150,000 people died in the conflict across the country since 2023, and around 12 million fled their homes.
[BBC]
