In Sudan, the parties to the civil war are accused of harnessing hunger as a weapon.
Sudan is facing a famine the likes of which the world has not seen in 40 years, US officials warn.
They refer to Ethiopia, where, according to UN estimates, one million people died of hunger and drought between 1983 and 1985.
Now, according to the worst forecasts, the situation in Sudan is even worse than this – up to 2.5 million people are at risk of dying by the end of September, says the US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
– The world needs to wake up to the disaster that is happening before our eyes, says Thomas-Greenfield, according to the news agency AFP.
About five million people are currently suffering from extreme hunger, and there is also a lack of food in the neighboring countries, where two million Sudanese have fled.
According to the UN, desperate people even eat grass to survive and children is already dying of malnutrition.
Aid organizations: Hunger is used as a weapon in war
The RSF paramilitary forces have been fighting the Sudanese armed forces since April last year in a bloody conflict that has turned into a civil war.
The RSF has repeatedly surrounded and attacked entire villages across the country.
According to UN estimates, tens of thousands of people have died in the war and the fighting has driven more than nine million people from their homes. This makes it the world’s biggest refugee crisis.
The UN has not yet officially declared a famine in Sudan. According to some experts, it is already underway in Khartoum, for example, which is one of the largest capitals in Africa.
Both sides of the war are using hunger as a weapon, aid officials say.
The army does not grant permission to cross the border or the front line, and RSF fighters have destroyed crops by burning, looted aid trucks and warehouses, and built their own roadblocks.
Both the Sudanese army and the RSF have denied allegations that they are blocking humanitarian aid
The conflict in Sudan also has global consequences, he writes The New York Times magazine.
If Sudan collapses, it threatens to drag the neighbors of the fragile region with it, such as Chad, Eritrea or South Sudan, the paper writes.
According to it, Sudan can become a haven for terrorist and criminal networks.
Sources: AFP, Reuters, STT