Fikra Center: Calls on the UN to Declare State of Famine

Sudan Events – Follow-up

Fikra Center for Studies and Development has called on the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies to declare a catastrophic fifth-level famine nationwide in Sudan.
In a press statement, (Monday), it called for dealing with the situation in Sudan on the basis of a catastrophic famine, and said that the deficit in financing food aid needs reached 75.9%, and described it as something unacceptable to the international community.
It added that agencies must scale up relief efforts related to the disaster in Sudan to the level that the increasing numbers and suffering reflect.
Shocking statistics were reported on the situation since the outbreak of the April 15 war as a result of a deadly combination of factors that placed more than 24 million Sudanese (about 60% of the population) in direct need of humanitarian aid, and 19.9 million (49.75% of the population) in dire need of food aid, while 17.7 million are in a state of acute food shortage.
The Center confirmed that the percentage of people affected by acute food deficiency reached 60% in West Darfur, 55% in Khartoum, and 48% in South Kordofan.
It pointed to the impact of areas that were not affected by the war, such as Kassala State, where the percentage of those affected was 43%, and agricultural states such as Gezira, which was affected by 31%. It noted that the threshold for declaring famine is 20% of the population.
It confirmed a decrease in cultivated land to 37% compared to previous years, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)attack on Gezira last December led to the disruption of the cultivation of one million fedans of food crops, while the disruption of supply chains for agricultural inputs led to a decrease in the area cultivated with wheat by at least 70%.
The statement indicated that the World Food Program’s warehouses were exposed to multiple looting operations, the most recent of which was on December 28, when RSF looted the Fund’s warehouses in Gezira and looted food stocks.
It confirmed the increase in deaths due to lack of food in multiple areas, especially the besieged and directly affected areas such as Khartoum and Darfur, while the war situation had its impacts on areas outside the control of the army and RSF in Darfur, South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains, which were already witnessing difficult humanitarian conditions.
Fikra Center for Studies and Development stressed that the numbers are not abstract numbers, but rather reflect increasing suffering that the world must give the attention it deserves.