PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s nearly 11-month war between rival generals “risks triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis,” the United Nations’ World Food Programme warned Wednesday.
The war between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has killed tens of thousands, destroyed infrastructure and crippled Sudan’s economy.
It has also uprooted more than eight million people, in addition to two million who had already been forced from their homes before the conflict — making it the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Now, “millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain said.
“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest hunger crisis and the world rallied to respond,” she said, referring to the vast western region of Sudan.
“But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten.”
The RSF are themselves descended from the Janjaweed militia, which was used by former dictator Omar Al-Bashir against ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in the early 2000s.
In the current war, both the RSF and the army have been accused of indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, targeting civilians and obstructing and commandeering essential aid.
The WFP is currently unable to access 90 percent of those facing “emergency levels of hunger,” and says only five percent of Sudan’s population “can afford a square meal a day.”
In crowded transit camps in South Sudan, where 600,000 people from Sudan have fled, “families arrive hungry and are met with more hunger,” the UN food agency said.
One in five children crossing the border was malnourished, it added.
Across Sudan, 18 million people are facing acute food security, five million of whom are at catastrophic levels of hunger — the highest emergency classification short of famine.
Sudan soon to be ‘world’s largest hunger crisis’: WFP
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Sudan soon to be ‘world’s largest hunger crisis’: WFP
- War between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, destroyed infrastructure and crippled Sudan’s economy
First responders enter devastated Aleppo neighborhood after days of deadly fighting
- The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army
ALEPPO, Syria: First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid Al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
