WFP warns funding shortfalls threaten food aid as Sudan hunger crisis deepens

The World Food Programme warned Monday that severe funding shortages could force it to scale back food assistance in Sudan within weeks as conflict, displacement, drought and hunger continue to worsen.

Carl Skau, WFP’s acting executive director, said after an eight-day mission to Sudan that the country remains the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, with about 20 million people facing acute hunger and 14 million displaced.

About 5 million people are experiencing emergency-level hunger, classified as IPC Phase 4, while roughly 200,000 people are facing starvation-level conditions, or IPC Phase 5, Skau said.

“The big issue though is funding,” Skau told reporters following visits to Khartoum, El Obeid, El Fasher and Tawila. “In the next few weeks, the risk is that we will have to scale back even further.”

WFP currently reaches between 4 million and 5 million people each month, including up to 2.5 million in some of the hardest-to-reach areas. But Skau said the agency is being forced to make increasingly difficult choices over who receives assistance.

In El Obeid, where the population has roughly doubled since the war began, WFP is prioritizing newly displaced people while reducing or ending assistance to some people who have been displaced for years.

Skau said some newly displaced people he met had walked for as long as five days after their villages and homes were destroyed.

In El Fasher, Skau described a city devastated by the fighting and an 18-month siege. Once home to about 1 million people, the city now has only tens of thousands of residents, he said.

He reported seeing bullet-riddled homes, burned vehicles and little economic activity during his visit. WFP is currently providing life-saving food assistance to about 20,000 people in El Fasher, which Skau said was effectively the only humanitarian assistance reaching those still there.

The nearby Zamzam displacement camp, once home to large numbers of civilians, was largely abandoned and destroyed, he said.

Tawila, meanwhile, has grown into a sprawling displacement site of nearly 1 million people after about 250,000 people arrived since April. WFP is providing assistance to about 950,000 people there each month, but only at half rations, meaning the food supplied lasts for roughly two weeks.

Skau said many households in Tawila are headed by women who have lost husbands or sons.The area also faces major shortages of shelter, health care, education and other basic services.

The humanitarian crisis is being compounded by severe drought in Darfur. Skau said the region has not experienced such dry conditions since 1984, despite the current rainy season, raising concerns over crop production and livestock.

Residents told him they feared that drought would destroy agricultural livelihoods at the same time that funding cuts could reduce humanitarian food assistance.

The fighting has also shifted. While Darfur was the main epicenter of the conflict a year ago, Skau said violence is now intensifying in Kordofan and Blue Nile.

Humanitarian access remains difficult because of insecurity, administrative clearances and the inability of aid agencies to cross active front lines. A WFP convoy attempting to reach Kordofan was attacked about two weeks ago, Skau said.

Despite the risks, WFP is transporting food into Darfur through Cameroon and Chad and into Kordofan from Port Sudan and Khartoum.

Skau said the agency needs better security arrangements, more permanent staff in difficult locations and expanded air services to improve access. But he emphasized that funding remains the most immediate obstacle.

The crisis is also being aggravated by disruptions to maritime routes through the Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz, as well as wider climate shocks, he said.

Skau urged international leaders to make Sudan a priority during the upcoming U.N. General Assembly high-level week and called for greater political efforts to end the war.

“The number one appeal” is for an end to the conflict, he said, adding that civilians must also receive basic humanitarian assistance while the fighting continues.

“We cannot keep failing these people,” Skau said, urging donors to provide the funding needed to sustain humanitarian operations.

WFP said it currently has the capacity and presence to deliver assistance in many parts of Sudan but is unable to fully use that capacity because of funding shortages.