The BMJ Appeal 2024-25: Starvation and malnutrition escalating the threat of Sudan’s civil war

Abstract

Getting aid to the millions facing “mass starvation” in Sudan’s brutal and escalating civil war is a top priority for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the subject of this year’s BMJ appeal. Jane Feinmann reports “We are witnessing the world’s largest displacement crisis playing out in Sudan, with 12 million people being forced to flee for their lives, many of them multiple times, and more than 750 000 facing catastrophic food insecurity,” warns Shashwat Saraf, regional emergency director for East Africa at the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Intense fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force began in the country’s capital city, Khartoum, 19 months ago in April 2023, rapidly wiping out the country’s healthcare system along with its financial and political infrastructure. Since then, both sides have engaged in actions that have disproportionately affected civilian populations along ethnic lines, says Saraf, with the war “set to continue apparently indefinitely and largely ignored by the world’s media.” “There’s a perfect storm of displacement, low food production, and restricted humanitarian access that is leading to horrific levels of hunger and death,” says Eatizaz Yousif, the IRC’s Sudan director, speaking to the media in June.1 Amid the chaos, “malnutrition is being used as a weapon of war by both factions,” Saraf says. More than 750 000 people in Sudan are known to be facing catastrophic food insecurity. In some parts of the country, nearly one in three children (30%) are at risk of dying …