Sudan’s civil war could lead to 2 million people dying of starvation. Aid organization: “The world is not watching”

Johannesburg – An aid agency issued a “crisis warning” for war-torn Sudan on Tuesday, accusing the international community of failing to resolve the Civil War which has been raging there for over a year.

The International Rescue Committee warned of looming famine and said that the lack of a political solution had brought Sudan to the brink of a “catastrophe of historic proportions”.

“The world is not looking at us, we are heading towards famine, massive loss of life and a failed state,” Eatizaz Yousif, IRC country director for Sudan, told CBS News.

Yousif warned that the world’s worst refugee crisis was rapidly becoming the world’s worst hunger crisis – and that the situation was continuing to worsen.

Two million people could die of starvation if the situation does not improve and additional humanitarian aid does not reach the country, say several humanitarian organizations CBS News spoke to. The IRC said it was too late to avert a major loss of life but warned the country was on the brink of famine and some areas were already in a famine-like situation.

If nothing changes, experts estimate that more than 222,000 children will die in the next few months.

More than 10 million people have fled their homes and are still displaced in the country. At least two million more have fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries.

Aid organizations report that hospitals, banks and schools are not functioning in most parts of Sudan.

“Currently, seven million children are suffering from malnutrition, all schools are closed and over 70 percent of hospitals are closed,” Yousif told CBS News, adding that his biggest concern was “the country’s descent into civil war and statelessness.”

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and its World Food Programme are working with other agencies to update their data, but they say three million people in Sudan are facing severe food shortages, suggesting famine, while another 18 million people are in urgent need of food assistance.

The UN has not yet declared a famine in Sudan because aid agencies have struggled to gather the necessary data to show that the disaster meets the requirements for such a formal declaration. A famine declaration requires proof that certain prescribed criteria regarding mortality rates, insecurity and other metrics are met. It does not trigger legal consequences but can prompt the international community to provide immediate assistance to those in need.

The Sudanese army – which has been at war with the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary faction since April 2023 – has blocked much of the data collection needed to declare a famine, charity workers in the country told CBS News.

The worst affected region is Darfur, where international aid organizations made accusations of genocide amid heavy shelling in the town of El Fasher, once home to three million people.

Residents of the region, now largely under RSF control, report hearing bombs day and night. The three hospitals in El Fasher that did not fall into RSF hands are no longer functioning and the town has little water.

If RSF takes El Fasher, the paramilitary group will control nearly a third of Sudan, including its western borders with Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, as well as Khartoum.

The military has begun encouraging young men to take up arms and fight alongside the regular army. Rumours say that the RSF is using forced recruitment in the Darfur region to increase its troop strength.

There is no reliable death toll in the conflict, but it is widely believed that tens of thousands of people have been killed. Electricity, health and telecommunications infrastructure have been largely destroyed and the government has been forced to relocate homes from the capital Khartoum to the coastal city of Port Sudan.

The UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire in Darfur earlier this month.

“This Council has today sent a strong signal to the parties to the conflict that this brutal and unjust conflict must end,” said British UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward after the vote.

Aid workers who spoke to CBS News said nothing has changed on the ground since the vote, and the UN has received only about 16 percent of the $2.6 billion they say is urgently needed to help the Sudanese people.

In recent weeks there had been hopes that pressure from the US and other countries could help bring about a peace agreement, but despite the impact on regional and global security, things have now calmed down, Yousif said.

US special envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello warned earlier this month that without a lasting peace agreement, Sudan would continue to fracture and could descend into a regional conflict with geopolitical consequences.