Sudan faces escalating hunger crisis due to war and Hormuz disruption – WFP

Renewed conflict and tensions in the Strait of Hormuz have slowed fertiliser shipments, worsening hunger in Sudan.Sudan risks facing a deepening hunger crisis due to ongoing conflict, aid ⁠funding cuts, and rising agricultural costs driven by the global disruption caused by the Iran war, a senior World Food Programme (WFP) official has said.“It’s a massive crisis, both in terms of numbers, but also due to the gravity,” Carl Skau, the WFP’s acting executive director, told Reuters on Tuesday.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4How the US-Iran conflict is reshaping Africa’s geopolitical opportunitieslist 2 of 4UN probe finds mass killings, gang rapes by Sudan’s RSF amount to genocidelist 3 of 4‘We are the lost generation of Sudan’: Students in exilelist 4 of 4Sudan sentences RSF chief Hemedti to death: Who’s he, what’s he accused of?end of listSkau said that more than 100,000 people were still facing famine-like conditions, placing them in the highest level of the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). “With these kinds of numbers in IPC 5 starvation, it is extremely, extremely serious,” he said.Sudan remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with around five million people facing emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger, even after an intensive ‌aid response helped reduce the number of people in famine-like conditions, Skau said.Nearly 19.5 million people across Sudan face high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the ⁠IPC. Skau said that recent fighting around el-Obeid in North Kordofan had raised fears the ⁠city could suffer a fate similar to el-Fasher in Darfur, where conflict and siege conditions trapped civilians and hindered aid deliveries, and where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out mass killings and gang rapes after they took control of the city in the course of their three-year conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).In recent days, however, violence has eased somewhat around el-Obeid, raising hopes that aid deliveries can be expanded from 100,000 to 250,000 in the area.