War in Sudan | Famine Looms
A bloody war has been raging in Sudan for over a year, forcing more than 13 million people to flee their homes. The country is now facing one of the world's most severe famines.
Once the main area of conflict, the Nuba Mountains have now become a safe haven
The Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan have been one of the most dangerous places in the country. In a civil war that has been going on for decades, the armed group SPLM-N based there has been heavily bombarded by the Sudanese military. The SPLM-N has not yet been drawn into the current power struggles between the SAF (government army) and the RSF, which have broken out since April 2023. As a result, the Nuba region is currently one of the safest in the country, apart from a few armed clashes on the outskirts of the area. As a result, more than 700,000 people have fled here from the rest of the country.
Despite finding a safe haven, the displaced people suffer from hunger
Due to the sharp increase in the population to an estimated 2.2 million people who now live and have found refuge in the region, the supply situation has been catastrophic for months. All official humanitarian access and trade routes to the Nuba Mountains have been closed. Food has not been able to be delivered for months. In addition, the fertile region suffered from a poor rainy season last year, which led to massive crop losses. A plague of locusts has also reduced the already poor harvest even further.
With these scarce resources, people have been unable to feed themselves for months and a disastrous famine is looming.
“A large number of people are at acute risk of starvation”
Cap Anamur Managing Director Bernd Göken reported in an interview with Deutschlandfunk in May that around 1 million people in the Nuba Mountains were acutely threatened by hunger at that time. In June, Cap Anamur was able to provide a large delivery of relief supplies for the hospital in the Nuba Mountains to ensure the operation of the health facility for the next 10 months. In this way, we can at least maintain medical care for the people. However, there is a lack of additional funds to bring urgently needed food to the region. The supply of food is currently the most urgent challenge, especially for the large number of children who are acutely suffering from hunger. We can see this in the steadily rising numbers of malnourished children being admitted to our hospital and the resulting increase in deaths.
The Nuba Mountains are currently one of the few places in Sudan where humanitarian aid can be reliably provided.
International aid is now needed to help the people affected by an acute famine. The access routes to the Nuba Mountains must be opened up to allow extensive deliveries of relief supplies. The region, where there is currently no active fighting, must be strengthened so that the refugees can be adequately supplied. This is because the displaced people can currently be reached safely in the Nuba Mountains.