Sudan’s War-Hit Crisis: Hundreds of Children Starve – NGO Report
Save the Children reported on Tuesday that starvation has killed at least 498 children and “likely hundreds more” in Sudan four months into a conflict between rival generals.
On April 15, hostilities broke out between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, approximately 5,000 people have been slain and over four million have been displaced.
Save the Children stated in a statement that at least 498 children in Sudan and likely hundreds more have perished from hunger, including twenty babies in a state orphanage.
Since the start of the war, the British charity has been compelled to close 57 of its nutrition facilities, and stocks are “critically low” in the remaining 108.
Arif Noor, the country director for Save the Children in Sudan, stated, “Never in our wildest imaginations did we imagine that so many children would die of hunger in Sudan.”
“Desperate mothers and fathers are bringing their gravely ailing children to nutrition centers across the nation, but our staff has few treatment options.
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“Children are dying of hunger, which is entirely preventable,”
In a statement released last week, the chiefs of twenty international humanitarian organizations warned that “over six million Sudanese are on the brink of famine.”
Violence persisted on Tuesday, particularly in Khartoum and Darfur, an extensive western region that is home to a quarter of Sudan’s 48 million people.
The combat in Darfur is concentrated in Nyala, the second largest city in Sudan, where the United Nations reports at least 60 deaths, 250 injuries, and 50,000 people since August 11.
Monday, the army reported that its commander there had been slain.
Aid trucks have been unable to enter Nyala, and the only hospital still operational in the capital of South Darfur has reported that it is overrun with injured patients.
At least 27 localities were destroyed by the RSF and allied Arab militias, according to the Humanitarian Research Lab of the Yale School of Public Health, as the conflict spread this month to the state capital of North Darfur, El Fasher.
“No one can halt them. The RSF is moving freely while the army is holed up in its bases, the director of the Lab, Nathaniel Raymond, told AFP.
Sudan’s War-Hit Crisis: Hundreds of Children Starve – NGO Report
