Khartoum, October 27 (Darfur24)
Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has rejected warnings of an impending famine, describing the country’s food situation as reassuring and saying strategic food reserves and ongoing agricultural activities would help meet domestic needs.
The ministry’s position comes in response to warnings from 32 countries, including the United States and several European nations, about worsening food insecurity and the risk of famine in the coming months. The countries urged the warring parties to remove obstacles to humanitarian aid deliveries.
In a statement on Monday, the Foreign Ministry said the government was assessing the impact of below-average rainfall in some areas, linked to the El Niño phenomenon, climate change and expanding desertification. It said measures had been initiated to address potential food shortages.
The ministry accused some foreign governments and organizations of exploiting the humanitarian situation to advance political objectives and impose conditions for a settlement under the guise of a humanitarian truce. It argued that such a truce would allow the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to recover from battlefield losses, rearm and redeploy.
“The Sudanese government rejects the politicization of humanitarian conditions to serve a well-known agenda that some countries have been rallying support for,” the statement said, adding that the government would continue its duty to protect civilians and provide assistance to those in need.
However, a joint statement issued by the US State Department estimated that 19.5 million people in Sudan—about 41% of the population—were experiencing acute food insecurity, including five million facing emergency levels of hunger.
The statement also warned that the number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition could exceed 825,000 without urgent action.
In June, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global food-security monitoring initiative supported by the United Nations and other partners, reported that 5.1 million people in Sudan were facing acute hunger.
