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WFP Receives Reports of People Dying of Starvation in Sudan

Examining a Sudanese child suffering from malnutrition. (World Food Program)
Examining a Sudanese child suffering from malnutrition. (World Food Program)
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WFP Receives Reports of People Dying of Starvation in Sudan

Examining a Sudanese child suffering from malnutrition. (World Food Program)
Examining a Sudanese child suffering from malnutrition. (World Food Program)

The UN World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday it was receiving reports of people dying of starvation in Sudan and that the number of hungry people has doubled over the past year as a war has cut off civilians from aid.

The WFP called on Sudan’s warring parties, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), to urgently “provide immediate guarantees for the safe and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian food assistance to conflict-hit parts of Sudan.”

“Almost 18 million individuals across the country are currently facing acute hunger (IPC3+),” while “an estimated five million people are experiencing emergency levels of hunger (IPC phase 4)” in areas worst affected by the conflict.

“WFP is currently only able to regularly deliver food assistance to 1 in 10 people facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC phase 4) in Sudan. These people are trapped in conflict hotspots, including Khartoum, Darfur, Kordofan, and now Gezira,” where the RSF Recently advanced.

"It is becoming nearly impossible for aid agencies to cross due to security threats, enforced roadblocks, and demands for fees and taxation," the WFP statement said.

The war in Sudan began in April 2023 when a power struggle between the army and the RSF erupted over a plan to shift towards civilian rule.

The two sides shared power with civilians after the overthrow of former leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019 before derailing that transition by staging a coup together in 2021.

Efforts to negotiate and end the fighting have so far yielded no breakthrough.

The WFP said it was trying to obtain security guarantees to restart operations in El Gezira, previously an aid hub that many had fled to from Khartoum.

Aid deliveries in Sudan had been limited because 70 trucks had been stuck in Port Sudan for over two weeks in January waiting for clearances, and another 31 WFP trucks have been parked empty and have been unable to leave El Obeid for over three months.

“Every single one of our trucks needs to be on the road each and every day delivering food to the Sudanese people,” said Eddie Rowe, WFP Sudan Representative and Country Director in Sudan.

“Yet life-saving assistance is not reaching those who need it the most, and we are already receiving reports of people dying of starvation,” Rowe added.

Under a classification agreed upon by a partnership of UN agencies and NGOs, crisis levels of hunger mean households suffer from high rates of acute malnutrition or can only meet minimum needs through crisis-coping strategies or using essential assets.

Emergency levels of hunger mean households are suffering from very high acute malnutrition or death or can only cope through emergency measures or liquidating assets.

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Syrians Celebrate a Month Since Assad’s Overthrow With Revolutionary Songs in Damascus

People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
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Syrians Celebrate a Month Since Assad’s Overthrow With Revolutionary Songs in Damascus

People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

A packed concert hall in Damascus came alive this week with cheers as Wasfi Maasarani, a renowned singer and symbol of the Syrian uprising, performed in celebration of “Syria’s victory."
The concert Wednesday marked Maasarani’s return to Syria after 13 years of exile. While living in Los Angeles, Maasarani had continued to support Syria’s uprising through his music, touring the US and Europe, The Associated Press said.
The concert organized by the Molham Volunteering Team, a humanitarian organization founded by Syrian students, also marked a month since a lightning insurgency toppled former President Bashar Assad.
Revolutionary songs like those by Maasarani and Abdelbasset Sarout — a Syrian singer and activist who died in 2019 — played a key role in rallying Syrians during the nearly 14-year uprising-turned civil war starting in 2011.
Many opponents of Assad's rule, like Maasarani, had fled the country and were unsure if they would ever be able to come back.
In the dimly lit concert hall, the crowd’s phone lights flickered like stars, swaying in unison with the music as the audience sang along, some wiping away tears. The crowd cheered and whistled and many waved the new Syrian flag, the revolutionary flag marked by three stars. A banner held up in the hall read, “It is Syria the Great, not Syria the Assad.”
One of Maasarani's best known songs is “Jabeenak ’Ali w Ma Bintal,” which he first sang in 2012, addressing the Free Syrian Army. It was a coalition of defected Syrian military personnel and civilian fighters formed in 2011 to oppose Assad during the civil war.
“You free soldier, the Syrian eminence appears in his eyes, he refused to fire at his people, he refused the shame of the traitor army, long live you free army, protect my people and the revolutionaries,” the lyrics read.
Another banner in the audience read, “It is the revolution of the people and the people never fail.”
Between performances, Raed Saleh, the head of the civil defense organization known as the White Helmets, addressed the crowd, saying, “With this victory, we should not forget the families who never found their children in the prisons and detention centers.”
Thousands were tortured or disappeared under Assad’s government. After the fall of Assad, the White Helmets helped in the search for the missing.
After the concert, Maasarani told The Associated Press, “It’s like a dream” to return to Syria and perform his revolutionary songs.
“We were always singing them outside of Syria, experiencing the happy and sad moments from afar,” he said, adding that his role was to capture the atrocities on the ground through song, ensuring “they would be remembered in history.” He reflected on his years in exile and recalled surviving two assassination attempts before leaving Syria.
“We have not seen this state without Assad since I was born,” said Alaa Maham, a concert attendee who recently returned from the United Arab Emirates. “I cannot describe my feelings, I hope our happiness lasts.”
The future of Syria is still unclear, as the former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, now the de facto ruling party, begins to form a new government and rebuild the country's institutions.
Whatever comes next, Maham said, “We got rid of the oppression and corruption with the fall of Assad and his family’s rule."