More than 240 Nuba starve to death in South Kordofan

On 26 February, a new report by the South Kordofan and Blue Nile States Food Security Monitoring Unit (FSMU) raised alerts with regard to the dire food security situation in the SPLM-N-controlled areas of Warni and Kawnyaro in South Kordofan's Talodi locality.

In eight villages assessed by FSMU, 242 people, including 24 children, were reported to have died from lack of food and hunger-related illness in the last six months of 2015, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan recently reported.

The areas are estimated to have the population of about 65,000 people, according to local community leaders.

Isolation, insecurity and poor harvests have resulted in severe levels of food insecurity and a large number of hunger-related deaths in Talodi locality in the southern part of the state. More hunger-related deaths are expected in 2016, as high levels of food insecurity persist, the report said.

Outbreaks of diarrhoea, malaria, fever, and measles were reported as well. There are no health facilities available in the vicinity.

Numerous attempts by the UN and its partners to forge an agreement between Khartoum and SPLM-N to carry out vaccinations of children in rebel-held areas in South Kordofan and Blue Nile have failed because of major disagreements between the parties.