By Gabriele Steinhauser and Mohamed Zakaria

Famine has expanded to more areas of Sudan, an international panel monitoring global hunger said Tuesday, as hundreds of thousands of people face starvation in the war-ravaged nation.

At least 638,000 people across five localities in Sudan's Darfur and Kordofan regions are now suffering catastrophic hunger, which is equivalent to famine, according to the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system, or IPC.

The IPC, which brings together experts from the United Nations, relief agencies and research groups, projected that another five areas were likely to plunge into famine as soon as this month, while 17 other localities are under threat of famine.

"This marks an unprecedented deepening and widening of the food and nutrition crisis, driven by the devastating conflict and poor humanitarian access," the IPC said in comments shared alongside the report.

"Starvation and death are evident," it added.

In total, 24.6 million people -- half of Sudan's population -- are experiencing food insecurity, the IPC said. That finding cements Sudan's status as the world's worst hunger hot spot, 20 months after a battle for power between two generals plunged the country into an all-out war.

The U.N. and other aid groups have accused both Sudan's military and its rival, the paramilitary-turned-rebel Rapid Support Forces, of obstructing the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid.

Sudan's Agriculture Ministry, which is controlled by the military, rejected the IPC's findings in a letter that was shared with diplomats and aid agencies ahead of the report's publication and which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The ministry said that the panel failed to correctly assess the country's most recent harvest and questioned its ability to collect data in RSF-controlled territories. It also said humanitarian organizations weren't delivering aid to millions of people in areas held by the military that they could easily access.

The ministry said it was suspending its participation in the IPC system in response to the report, a step that is likely to make it even harder to determine the extent of Sudan's hunger crisis.

The IPC's Famine Review Committee determined in August that there was a famine in the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, which it estimated at the time was home to more than 500,000 people. Famine has now spread to several other camps of the displaced in Darfur, as well as parts of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan state, the committee said Tuesday.

Formal famine declarations are rare and are based on specific criteria. Those include one in three children being acutely malnourished and at least two out of every 10,000 people dying from hunger-related causes a day. Over the past 15 years, the IPC has confirmed just four famines, including the current one in Sudan.

The situation in Zamzam has deteriorated dramatically since August, with some local activists estimating that the number of dead children has tripled compared with previous years. Aid groups have struggled to deliver food due to heavy flooding during the rainy season and escalating clashes between the military and allies over the nearby city of El Fasher.

In recent weeks, the camp itself has been shelled by the RSF, which grew out of the infamous Janjaweed militia that terrorized Darfur in the early 2000s. The shelling has killed dozens of people in Zamzam, including small children, according to local activists.

Thousands of residents who had sought safety in Zamzam from the fighting in El Fasher and attacks on nearby villages are now once again on the run, weakened by months of lack of food and other basic necessities. Many are fleeing to areas that the IPC now says are already at risk of famine.

Haja Ahmed Turko, a 20-year-old mother of three, fled to Zamzam from El Fasher earlier this year. Soon after, her 3-year-old son Adam was diagnosed with malnutrition at a clinic in the camp run by Doctors Without Borders.

In early October, Adam started vomiting and suffering from diarrhea. His mother took him to another hospital, but doctors there weren't able to save the little boy.

"I was sitting next to him until he died," Ahmed told a Journal reporter three days later. "I did not expect him to go so quickly."

Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at Gabriele.Steinhauser@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 24, 2024 07:42 ET (12:42 GMT)

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