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The World Food Program warned Wednesday about a "looming hunger catastrophe" in Sudan, where months of conflict, high food prices and lower crop yields have left an increasing number of people at emergency levels of hunger.
"Nearly 18 million people across Sudan are facing acute hunger right now - this is equivalent to the entire population of the Netherlands and more than double the number at the same time a year ago," WFP Sudan spokesperson Leni Kinzli told reporters in a remote briefing from Nairobi.
Fighting erupted between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in mid-April, displacing 6.6 million people both inside and outside the country. Repeated efforts to achieve a cease-fire have failed.
Kinzli said fighting and checkpoints have hindered aid operations. WFP is especially worried about populations trapped in Khartoum, the Darfur region in the west, and the south-central Kordofan region where aid deliveries have been sporadic at best. She said WFP has had some access to people in the greater Khartoum area, but only managed to reach the capital once in the last three months.
She said the food agency, along with the entire humanitarian community, are urgently calling on the parties to the conflict for a humanitarian pause to get aid access.
"Lives are depending on it," the spokesperson said.
Kinzli said WFP is alarmed at the levels of hunger now during the current harvest season, when food is typically more plentiful. She said if more food assistance does not reach communities before the lean season in May, when food is in shorter supply, "catastrophic levels" of hunger could begin to emerge.
The food agency urgently needs $252 million to fund its operations in Sudan through May. More than 500,000 people have fled to neighboring Chad, where the food agency is already stretched thin. WFP needs $185 million over the next six months to assist 4 million people in Chad or, Kinzli warned, they may have to start cutting rations.
"The [U.N.] secretary-general is gravely concerned by the unwillingness of the parties - so far - to cease hostilities, which has caused untold suffering for civilians across Sudan," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' spokesperson told reporters Wednesday.