Sudan and Starvation Deaths Reported by WFP (Darfur)
Kanako Mita and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
The crisis in Sudan is now witnessing deaths from starvation, according to the United Nations (UN) food agency.
Hence, the World Food Programme (WFP) calls for unimpeded access to all areas blighted by food insecurity in war-torn Sudan.
The WFP Representative in Sudan (Eddie Rowe) said, “The situation in Sudan today is nothing short of catastrophic.”
Across Sudan, approximately 18 million people face food insecurity. Accordingly, the situation is desperate near areas of military clashes. Therefore, with the war raging in the worst-hit areas, food insecurity is increasing because food distribution is being hampered.
Rowe said, “Life-saving assistance is not reaching those who need it the most, and we are already receiving reports of people dying of starvation.”
AP News reports, “The 10 months of clashes between the Sudanese military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has decimated vast swaths of the northeastern African country.”
Alarmingly – and to the detriment of all sides in the conflict – UN News reports, “… due to security threats, enforced roadblocks and demands for fees and taxation” then humanitarian convoys face an array of problems.
DARFUR
In Darfur, a recent UN report stipulated that up to 15,000 Africans were butchered in a single city in West Darfur last year. The culprits behind the massacres that took place in El Geneina in Sudan were the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militias.
This report highlights Arab ethnic massacres of African Masalits in Darfur. Hence, the findings said, “Young men were particularly targeted and interrogated about their ethnicity. If identified as Masalit, many were summarily executed with a shot to the head. Women were physically and sexually assaulted. Indiscriminate shootings also injured and killed women and children.”
The Guardian reports, “The violence in El Geneina and Ardamata has drawn parallels with the genocide of the mid-2000s, when Kalashnikov-wielding Arab militias called the Janjaweed crushed a rebellion by African groups in Darfur, killing an estimated 300,000. The RSF emerged out of the Janjaweed.”
The BBC reports, “Attempts to broker peace between the warring factions have so far failed, and in recent weeks fighting has only intensified.”
International demonstrations and the mass Western media are over-focused on the crisis in Gaza – similar to the conflict in Ukraine. However, starvation deaths have been reported in the regions of Amhara and Tigray in Ethiopia, Myanmar is blighted by bloodshed and massacres, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a never-ending nightmare, and countless other conflicts from Burkina Faso to Northern Mozambique.
Warring parties must support the humanitarian needs of the people of Sudan. Also, international honest brokers are needed to stop the bloodshed and the horrendous ethnic massacres in Darfur.
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