Update June 27: Read new IPC report on Sudan here
At a tent settlement in the Chadian border town of Adre, Ahmat feeds blue cloth into his foot-powered sewing machine, as a popular folksong from his native Sudan plays in loops over a loudspeaker.
Famine has been confirmed in a camp sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur Region.
The declaration for Zamzam camp is a result of conflict, displacement and humanitarian access constraints.
Famine has been confirmed in Zamzam camp, which shelters hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur Region, as conflict, displacement and humanitarian-access constraints have devastating consequences.
Breaking: WFP Sudan latest
In the eastern city of Port Sudan, where tens of thousands of war-displaced seek shelter, frail infants with stick-thin arms chalk up dangerously high malnutrition levels. Hungry people pack schools and other makeshift housing centres, clinging to scant belongings from their old lives.
“We are targeting new refugees in reception and transit centres because the time right after fleeing crisis is of extreme difficulty and vulnerability,” H.E. Mr Hidemoto Fukazawa, Ambassador of Japan to Uganda said.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is working around the clock to deliver food assistance to communities across Sudan facing acute hunger. WFP’s priority is providing vital aid across 14 areas in the country to people who have been left either in famine or at risk of slipping into famine after 500 days of relentless conflict.
The Nobel Peace Prize gives WFP recognition “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict”.
The nutrient-dense dates will also benefit nutritionally vulnerable refugees, such as pregnant and breastfeeding women and hospital patients.
This contribution from the State of Qatar Ministry of Municipality comes at a time when WFP is facing funding gaps resulting in only 60 percent of the required kilocalorie being given to refugees.
“We are grateful to the State of Qatar’s timely gesture
The world’s youngest country has struggled to overcome a multitude of challenges. Conflict, climate shocks, a widespread economic crisis and the conflict in neighbouring Sudan continue to put sufficient, nutritious food out of reach for millions of families.
South Sudan is simultaneously drowning and drying as the climate crisis tightens its grip. An unprecedented flooding crisis has swallowed large swathes of the country while other parts are grappling with devastating drought.
More than 7 million people are food insecure, and 1.65 million children are malnourished.