WASHINGTON, Aug 3, (AP): The newly confirmed famine at one of the sprawling camps for war-displaced people in Sudan’s Darfur region is growing uncontrolled as the country's combatants block aid, and it threatens to grow bigger and deadlier than the world’s last major famine 13 years ago, US officials warned on Friday.
The US Agency for International Development, the UN World Food Program and other independent and government humanitarian agencies were intensifying calls for a cease-fire and aid access across Sudan. That's after international experts in the Famine Review Committee formally confirmed Thursday that the starvation in at least one of three giant makeshift camps, holding up to 600,000 people displaced by Sudan's more than yearlong war, had grown into a full famine.
Two US officials briefed reporters on their analysis of the crisis on Friday following the famine finding, which is only the third in the 20-year history of the Famine Review Committee. The US officials spoke on the condition of anonymity as the ground rules for their general briefing.
The last major famine, in Somalia, was estimated to have killed a quarter of a million people in 2011, half of them children under 5 years old.
The blocks that Sudan’s warring sides are putting on food and other aid for the civilians trapped in the Zamzam camp are realizing "the worst fears of the humanitarian community,” one of the U.S. officials said.
War in the northern African country erupted in April 2023 when two rival generals, both with international backers, suddenly opened a deadly battle for control of Sudan's capital, which was then under a civilian transitional government that Sudanese had hoped would bring stability to the country. On one side, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, grew out of the Janjaweed militias notorious for their mass attacks, rape and forced displacement of civilians in Darfur in 2003.
As most of the world paid attention to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and the larger Middle East, the Sudanese war quickly grew into the world's largest humanitarian crisis. The United Nations said last month that 10.7 million people were displaced because of the conflict. Unlike the earlier war, much of the country is dealing with acute hunger.
Sudan and others accuse the United Arab Emirates of supporting the RSF, which the UAE denies. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are among those supporting the government-aligned armed forces battling the RSF.