WHO: Lean Season Could Bring 'Catastrophic' Hunger in Sudan

Sudanese displaced by the war wait for water in Wad Madani © - / AFP
Sudanese displaced by the war wait for water in Wad Madani © - / AFP
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WHO: Lean Season Could Bring 'Catastrophic' Hunger in Sudan

Sudanese displaced by the war wait for water in Wad Madani © - / AFP
Sudanese displaced by the war wait for water in Wad Madani © - / AFP

Conflict-torn Sudan's summer months lean season could trigger catastrophic levels of hunger, with millions already struggling for food, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday.

Peter Graaff, acting WHO representative to Sudan, warned that a "perfect storm" was brewing with people, weakened by hunger, falling pray to infectious diseases -- in a health system which has virtually collapsed amid the fighting.

The lean season, roughly from April to July, sees food prices run high as stocks dwindle ahead of the next harvest.

War that broke out in April last year between Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, his former deputy and commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has killed thousands and sparked a humanitarian disaster.

Around 25 million people -- more than half the population -- need aid, including nearly 18 million who face acute food insecurity, according to UN numbers.

About five million people are already in emergency levels of hunger, Graaff told a briefing in Geneva.

"There is concern that the upcoming lean season will lead to catastrophic levels of hunger in the worst-affected areas," he said, via video-link from Cairo.

"Malnourished children are at increased risk of dying from illnesses like diarrhoea, pneumonia and measles, especially in a setting where they lack access to life-saving health services.

"The situation in Sudan is therefore a perfect storm," he said.

"The health system is hardly functional... and infectious diseases are spreading: over 10,000 cases of cholera have been reported, 5,000 cases of measles, about 8,000 cases of dengue, and over 1.2 million clinical cases of malaria."

The fighting has triggered a rapid displacement crisis, with 1.8 million people having fled across the borders, and 6.1 million displaced within the country.

"I have witnessed first-hand the displacement within Sudan and in neighbouring Chad. And what I have seen is alarming and heartbreaking," Graaff said, recounting people forced to walk for days, only to find shelter in overcrowded areas with little food, water and sanitation.

"The people of Sudan are facing a life-or-death situation due to the continued violence, insecurity, and limited access to essential health services and supplies," Graaff said.

"And there seems to be little hope of a political solution in sight."

He called for safe and unhindered access in order to provide life-saving health services and supplies.



Gaza Rescuers Say Nine Children among Dead in Israel Strike on UN Building

A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP
A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP
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Gaza Rescuers Say Nine Children among Dead in Israel Strike on UN Building

A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP
A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP

The Israeli army said it targeted Hamas militants in a strike on a UN building in Jabalia refugee camp Wednesday that Gaza's civil defense agency said killed 19 people, nine of them children.

The army said in a statement that it struck the militants "inside a command and control centre that was being used for coordinating terrorist activity", and separately confirmed to AFP the building housed a UN clinic.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said there were also dozens of people wounded in the strike which "targeted an UNRWA building housing a medical clinic".

The army said that "the compound was used by Hamas's Jabalia Battalion to plan terror attacks", and accused Hamas of "exploiting the civilian population as a human shield".

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the "massacre at the UNRWA clinic in Jabalia", calling for "serious international pressure" to halt Israel's widening offensive.

The Islamic Jihad militant group, a Hamas ally, called the bombing a "blatant war crime".

Israel has on several occasions conducted strikes on UNRWA buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for most of the past 18 months.

A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after UNRWA said six of its staff were among the 18 people reported killed.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter -- a charge the Palestinian militant group denies.

Israel resumed major airstrikes on the Palestinian territory on March 18, after talks on next steps in a six-week truce broke down.

It also conducted airstrikes on southern and central Gaza on Wednesday that the civil defense agency said killed at least 15 people, including children, in the city of Khan Yunis and Nuseirat refugee camp.

Since then, at least 1,042 people have been killed in Gaza, according to figures last updated by Gaza's health ministry on Tuesday.

In total, 50,399 people have been killed since the start of the war triggered by Hamas's October 2023 attack, according to the ministry's figures, which the United Nations views as reliable.