Sudan's famine-hit Zamzam camp receive vital food, as WFP faces a race against time to save lives

WFP is working tirelessly to get aid into the hands of people who are facing starvation, and we are saving thousands of lives every single day in Sudan. So far this year, we’ve supported 5.4 million people with life-saving food and nutrition assistance. As we speak, we are urgently getting basic staple foods into the hands of 180,000 people facing famine in Zamzam camp. Vulnerable communities are receiving a package of wheat flour, lentils, oil and salt. 

Meanwhile in Khartoum, WFP is supporting community kitchens to provide around 175,000 hot meals daily. We’ve also just started in-kind food distributions for around 155,000 people in Karrari and Omdurman where people will receive two-month rations. Around 16,000 people in the metropolitan area received mobile money transfers in July and August, with a higher number planned for this month. WFP has also launched self-registration pilots to expand mobile money transfers to North and South Darfur, South Kordofan, and Gezira State. 

WFP is taking advantage of the reopening of the Adre border from Chad into the conflict-rattled Darfur region. Trucks carrying vital food and nutrition supplies are crossing that border most days, despite facing delays due to flooded seasonal rivers and muddy road conditions where aid convoys are getting stuck. Since Adre reopened one month ago, we’ve transported 2,800 metric tonnes of food supplies into Darfur region via this route, enough aid for over 250,000 people. Of that, over 100,000 people in risk of famine areas in West Darfur have so far received emergency food and nutrition supplies. 

Even though we are doing everything we can – it’s just a drop in the ocean compared to the needs, not just in Sudan but regionally. Across Sudan, South Sudan and Chad, around 36 million people have been pushed into hunger because of the ongoing war. 

I was recently in Adre, Chad – where around 800,000 people have fled to. After enduring unimaginable violence, they are only met with hunger and destitution. Despite receiving food assistance, many are struggling to get by, eating once a day if they are lucky. Like a teenage girl I met called Thuraya who lost both her parents and is solely responsible for her younger siblings, sometimes only able to offer them water instead of a meal. If that is the situation for people in a comparably safe and stable place – it is hard to imagine what people facing famine or at risk of famine in Sudan are going through. I did get a glimpse from the stories I heard of women who had recently fled from ‘risk of famine’ areas. Women like Nadjua. Nadjua, along with other new arrivals, risked their lives to get to safety in Chad because there was nothing left to eat, and all their crops had been destroyed by floods. Others said they could not farm because it was too unsafe to go their fields. Health and nutrition workers in the camp told me that over half of their malnutrition cases in the camp were new arrivals coming from risk of famine areas in Sudan. 

It is people like Thuraya and Nadjua – who are among tens of millions bearing the brunt of the brutal war in Sudan – that world leaders need to pay attention to. It is for them that they need to step up for during the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week. WFP and other aid agencies cannot tackle these challenges alone. We are doing everything we can, but we cannot stop widespread starvation and hunger-related deaths without the support and attention of the international community, too.

World leaders need to give this humanitarian catastrophe the attention it requires. That attention then needs to be translated into concerted diplomatic efforts – at the highest levels – to push for a humanitarian ceasefire and ultimately an end the conflict. We also need the international community to step up in demanding that the warring parties guarantee safe and unfettered humanitarian access and adhere to international humanitarian law.  Lastly, we need a surge in funding to address the extraordinary level of need – over $600 million in coming six months, to provide urgent aid to people in the most severe levels of hunger across the region. We would require even more to help everyone who needs it. 

For over 500 days the Sudanese people have been bearing the brunt of this war, feeling forgotten and abandoned by the world. They are still holding on to hope that one day they can return to their lives. Together, we owe it to the Sudanese people to step up collective action and prevent mass-scale starvation. The hopes of the Sudanese people, their future, are riding on what we do next. We cannot let them down. 

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

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