Famine spreads to more towns in Darfur region, hunger experts warn as war rages on

Cairo: Famine is spreading in war-torn Sudan’s western Darfur region and has now engulfed two more towns there, a global hunger monitoring group said Thursday.

The announcement came after the group said last year that people in Darfur’s major city of el-Fasher, overrun by the paramilitary forces after an 18-month siege, were enduring famine.

Since April 2023, war has gripped much of Sudan after a power struggle erupted between the East African country’s military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid

Support Forces. The conflict has triggered what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The report on the spread of famine by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, came as an attack Thursday by the RSF on a military hospital in southern Sudan killed 22 people, including the hospital’s medical director and another three members of the medical staff.

The attack, in the town of Kouik in South Kordofan province, also left eight people wounded, the Sudan Doctors’ Network, a group of medical professionals tracking the war said.

It was not immediately clear how many of the casualties were civilians.

The IPS report said famine has now been detected in the towns of Umm Baru and Kernoi in Darfur. In November, the group said el-Fasher — a major city in the region — was enduring famine and also the city of Kadugli in South Kordofan.