With the deteriorating humanitarian situation in some Sudanese regions, as a result of the ongoing war between the army forces headed by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, dirt has become the food of some Sudanese after food became scarce, as is the case in Al-Lait camp for the displaced.
The poor camp located in North Darfur is witnessing a new influx of displaced people with the expansion of the fighting that has been going on for about a year, covering large areas of the country, and amid an ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur.
Garang Achin Akok, one of thousands of new arrivals to the region, confirmed that he, his wife, and their five children left their home in the Kordofan region in South Sudan after Arab militias on camels stormed their village and burned their hut.
Days without food
Akok (41 years old), who came to Laait last December, explained that they sometimes spent two or three days without food. He said that when this happens, he looks helplessly at his wife and children as they dig holes in the ground, put their hands in them, pick up some dirt, make balls of it, put them in their mouths and swallow them with water.
He also added, “I keep telling them not to do that… but it’s hunger… I can’t do anything,” according to what Reuters reported.
Desperate measures
In order to survive, people across Sudan are resorting to desperate measures.
In West Darfur, farmers had nothing to survive except the seeds they had bought to plant, after the Rapid Support Forces looted their lands, according to what they claimed.
In the Kordofan region, some sold their furniture and clothes to get money to buy food.
Boil the leaves and eat them
In Khartoum, some residents trapped in their homes had no choice but to cut tree leaves, boil them, and eat them.
For her part, Annette Hoffman, who prepared a report for the Netherlands-based Kligendaal Research Foundation on the food crisis in Sudan, explained that the war “caused the largest hunger crisis in the world,” adding that it is likely that a famine that we have not seen in decades will occur.
These warnings came as hunger was spreading and famine was spreading in the country, amid the absence of any signs of a decline in the intensity of the war that broke out in April last year between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Stealing crops
The agricultural sector collapsed as crops were stolen from farmers and they were forced to flee their lands due to violence.
Hunger has become another reason for displacement, and not just fighting, as some people abandon their homes in search of food.
While malaria and other diseases spread among the displaced.
Major aid centers were also looted by some militias.
It is noteworthy that the Integrated Interim Classification of Food Security, a global tool for monitoring hunger, indicated that nearly 18 million people in Sudan, or more than a third of the country’s population of 49 million, face “high levels of acute food insecurity.”
His estimates also showed that of this number, nearly five million are one step away from starvation.
As for the Kligendaal report, it presented three visions for Sudan. The most optimistic of these scenarios is that famine will strike six percent of the population. In the worst case, 40 percent will suffer famine during the inter-harvest drought, which begins in May and lasts until September.
