War Decimates Harvest in Famine-Threatened Sudan

Sudanese people fleeing the Jazirah district arrive at a camp for the displaced in the eastern city of Gedaref on October 31, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese people fleeing the Jazirah district arrive at a camp for the displaced in the eastern city of Gedaref on October 31, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
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War Decimates Harvest in Famine-Threatened Sudan

Sudanese people fleeing the Jazirah district arrive at a camp for the displaced in the eastern city of Gedaref on October 31, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese people fleeing the Jazirah district arrive at a camp for the displaced in the eastern city of Gedaref on October 31, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

Ahmed Othman's farm has been spared from the deadly fighting that has spread across Sudan, but the war's toll on the economy and labor market has still reached him.
"I had to sell two vehicles" to afford to harvest this season's crops, he told AFP from his large sesame farm in eastern Sudan's Gedaref state.
A year and a half of war in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises and devastated harvests.
Last month, United Nations experts accused the warring sides of using "starvation tactics" against 25 million civilians, and three major aid organizations warned of a "historic" hunger crisis as families resort to eating leaves and insects.
Hundreds of farmers have been driven off their once-fertile lands and those who have managed to remain face tremendous hardships.
Gedaref state is key to Sudan's corn production, a crucial crop for a population the World Food Program warns is nearing famine -- a condition already declared at a displacement camp in the country's western region of Darfur.
"The first challenge we faced was securing funding as banks are experiencing a cash crunch due to the war," said Othman.
Cash shortages have occurred even in army-controlled Gedaref since the RSF took over the capital Khartoum and banks were ransacked.
The farmer said that without selling two out of his three vehicles he could not have afforded fuel for farm machinery or to pay workers to prepare the fields and tend to the crops.
"The second problem is the scarcity of farm workers due to the war, which has limited their movement across states," he added.
Most workers in Gedaref previously came from the adjacent states of Blue Nile and Sennar, as well as from Kordofan further away.
Giving up
However, the war has restricted inter-state movement, leaving farm owners like Othman with only a small workforce.
Another local farmer, Suleiman Mohamed, said "the shortage of workers has driven up wages, so we are relying on those already in the area, mainly Ethiopians" who have long resided in Sudan's east as refugees.
War began in April 2023 between the army under the country's de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Disruptions to the harvest this season could exacerbate the hunger crisis, made worse by restrictions on aid entry.
European and North American nations issued a joint statement last month that accused the warring sides of "systematic obstruction" of aid efforts. They said both sides should urgently admit the assistance to millions of people in dire need.
In southern Gedaref, another farmer, Othman Abdelkarim, said many have already given up on this year's season.
"Most of us have relied on ourselves for financing, and some simply opted out and didn't plant," he said, pointing to an unplanted field west of his farm.
"This crisis will delay the harvest and affect its quality," he added.
The state's agriculture ministry reported that nine million acres (3.6 million hectares) were cultivated in Gedaref this year -- five million with corn and the rest with sesame, sunflowers, peanuts and cotton.
That is less than half of the roughly 20 million acres planted annually before the war.
Farmer Suleiman Mohamed fears there is no hope for this season's crop.
"With fewer workers and delayed harvesting, we'll face losses, and part of the crop will be lost," he said from his farm in eastern Gedaref.



At Least 40 Dead in Gaza, Medics Say, as Israeli Tanks Pull back from Camp

 Palestinian men sit together inside a destroyed building after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian men sit together inside a destroyed building after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
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At Least 40 Dead in Gaza, Medics Say, as Israeli Tanks Pull back from Camp

 Palestinian men sit together inside a destroyed building after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian men sit together inside a destroyed building after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)

Israeli military strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians overnight and on Friday in the Gaza Strip, many of them in the Nuseirat refugee camp at the center of the enclave, medics said, after Israeli tanks pulled back from parts of the camp.

Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave's eight long-standing refugee camps.

Later on Friday, an Israeli air strike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip, medics said.

Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, medics added. There was no fresh statement by the Israeli military on Friday, but on Thursday it said its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip".

Israeli tanks had entered northern and western areas of Nuseirat on Thursday. They withdrew from northern areas on Friday but remained active in western parts of the camp. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped in their homes.

Dozens of Palestinians returned on Friday to areas where the army had retreated to check on damage to their homes.

Medics and relatives covered up dead bodies, including of women, that lay on the road with blankets or white shrouds and carried them away on stretchers.

"Forgive me, my wife, forgive me, my Ibtissam, forgive me, my dear," one grief-stricken man moaned through tears beside her corpse, laid out on a stretcher on the ground.

Medics said an Israeli drone on Friday had killed Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the army has been operating since early October.

Contacted by Reuters, the Israeli military said it was unaware of a strike occurring in this location or timeframe.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip that barely function now due to shortages of medical, fuel, and food supplies. Most of its medical staff have been detained or expelled by the Israeli army, health officials say.

DISPLACEMENTS

The Israeli army said forces operating in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia since Oct. 5 aimed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping and waging attacks from those areas. Residents said the army was depopulating the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun as well as the Jabalia refugee camp.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities released around 30 Palestinians whom it had detained in the past few months during its Gaza offensive. Those released arrived at a hospital in southern Gaza for medical checkups, medics said.

Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture in Israeli detention after they were released. Israel denies torture.

Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold

A ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and had overshadowed the Gaza conflict.

Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and he urged Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,300 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.

The Hamas-led fighters who attacked southern Israeli communities 13 months ago, triggering the war, killed some 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel has said.