WFP: ‘Five million Sudanese can’t afford one meal a day’   

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the vast majority of Sudanese face severe hunger, with more than five million people unable to have one adequate meal per day, amidst 10 months of war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

During a press conference held in the Belgian capital, Brussels, yesterday, WFP Sudan Director Eddie Rowe said that “five million people in Sudan cannot afford a square meal a day”.

18 million people across Sudan face severe food insecurity, and “10 per cent of the population, close to five million people, are on the precipice of catastrophe”, the second-worst emergency classification used by the WFP before famine, Rowe told reporters.

WFP previously warned of difficulties acessing people affected by the ongoing war, reaching “only 10 per cent of those in need”, according to WFP East Africa Director Michael Dunford.

Rowe told reporters earlier this month that “WFP has food in Sudan, but lack of humanitarian access and other unnecessary hurdles are slowing operations and preventing us from getting vital aid to the people who most urgently need our support”.

 WFP operations are also facing a severe lack of funding, of which there is a $300million gap, the UN organisation said on February 19.

The spread of war to main agricultural areas in Sudan, such as ‘Sudan’s breadbasket’ El Gezira, has greatly affected food production. Fighting in El Gezira temporarily forced WFP to suspend its operations in the state on December 15.

Khartoum

As reported by Dabanga on Tuesday, all community kitchens in Khartoum North suspended operations due to a scarcity in food supplies.

In southern Khartoum, fruit and vegetable prices have reportedly soared due to the interruption to online banking and the rise in fuel prices.

Southern Belt** Emergency Committee spokesperson Mohamed Kendasha told Dabanga that security conditions in the markets of southern Khartoum are stable, “but prices of produce have risen drastically due to merchants’ inability to pay farmers and suppliers, who prefer to receive online transfers”.

Online banking in Sudan has been brought to a halt by a country-wide telecommunications blackout. An earlier decision by the Central Bank of Sudan to halve transfer limits  further “hindered fund transfers and consequently diminished commercial activity”, a merchant told Dabanga in late November.

* UPDATE: This article was updated on February 25 at 11:00 to reflect amendments requested by the WFP Sudan spokesperson, who says that WFP Sudan Director Eddie Rowe “misspoke” at the Brussels briefing. “During that briefing, the five per cent statistic mentioned is incorrect. What he meant to say is five million people cannot afford a basic meal a day (which is 10 per cent of the population) who are in emergency levels of hunger (IPC4),” the WFP spokesperson clarifies.

** Khartoum’s Southern Belt is part of the periphery of the capital inhabited by people earlier displaced by wars in Darfur, Kordofan, and Blue Nile region and South Sudanese refugees, and by impoverished farmers from various parts of the country who lost their lands to banks.