Famine is spreading in war-torn Sudan, a UN-backed report says News about the war in Sudan

The IPC report outlines famine in five areas, including in Sudan's largest IDP camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province.

Famine spread in Sudan because of a war between the army and the paramilitary group, says a UN-backed global hunger monitoring group.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee released a report on Tuesday outlining famine in five areas, including in Sudan's largest IDP camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province.

Famine conditions were confirmed in Abu Shuq and al-Salam, two camps for internally displaced people in el-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, as well as residential and displaced communities in the Nubian Mountains of southern Sudan, according to the report. .

The five-member commission also found that the famine, first identified in August, is likely to spread to five other districts – Umm Qadada, Melit, El-Fasher, Tawisha and Al-Laith – by May. It also identified another 17 districts in Sudan at risk of famine.

According to the IPC report, 24.6 million Sudanese – half the population – face acute food shortages.

“(The war) has caused unprecedented mass displacement, a collapsing economy, the breakdown of basic social services, severe social upheaval and poor humanitarian access,” the report said.

The IPC, an independent body funded by Western nations, is made up of more than a dozen UN agencies, aid groups and governments that use its monitoring as a global reference for analyzing food and nutrition crises.

The report was released despite the Sudanese government's continued disruption of the IPC process to analyze food shortages. On Monday, the government announced it was suspending its participation in the global hunger monitoring system, saying the IPC issued “unreliable reports that undermine Sudan's sovereignty and dignity.”

Sudan has been rocked by a 20-month war that has killed more than 24,000 people and drove more than 14 million people – about 30 percent of the population – from their homes, according to the United Nations. An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have crossed into neighboring countries, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.

The war began in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between the military and rapid support paramilitary forces erupted into open fighting in the capital Khartoum before spreading to other urban areas and the western region of Darfur.

The conflict has been marked by atrocities, including ethnically motivated killings and rapes, according to the UN and human rights groups. The International Criminal Court investigates alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In its report, the IPC added that in conflict zones, hostilities can seriously disrupt agriculture, causing workers to abandon crops. Farms have also suffered from looting and killing of livestock.

“Displaced households, especially those living in settlements and public buildings, are unlikely to benefit significantly from the harvest,” it said.

Dervla Cleary, senior emergency and rehabilitation officer at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, said the situation in Sudan was “simply terrible”.

“It's unacceptable in a world like today,” Cleary told The Associated Press. “We need the violence to stop so people can have access to food, water, health, nutrition and agriculture.”

Sudan is the third country in which famine has been declared in the last 15 years. The other two are South Sudan and Somalia.