Sudão: Milhões de esfomeados

Farmers and herders in Sudan need urgent support to help prevent the food security situation in the country from deteriorating further, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization warned. Some 3.3 million people are currently suffering from food insecurity with numbers likely to rise to 4 million in the coming months due to a combination of increased conflict and displacement in Darfur, refugee movement from neighbouring South Sudan, poor harvest and spiralling food prices.

In some areas of Sudan, existing crisis levels of food insecurity are expected to deteriorate to emergency levels in the coming few weeks, bringing an even higher degree of acute malnutrition with devastating consequences for vulnerable groups.

"Sudan is a forgotten crisis that is only getting worse," said Abdi Adan Jama, FAO Representative in the country. "We urgently need to ensure vulnerable herders and farmers affected by the situation are in a position to regain their livelihoods, feed their families, reduce their dependency on food aid and rebuild their lives."

United Nations agencies and partners have so far received only 3.5 percent of the $995 million that they requested to carry out urgent humanitarian interventions set out in the Strategic Response Plan for Sudan in 2014.

The current food security situation in Sudan has multiple causes, including a poor 2013-2014 harvest due to late and below-average rains in main cropping areas, with cereal production dropping to 65-70 percent of the last five-year average.

A resurgence of fighting and inter-tribal violence has resulted in people fleeing their homes and missing critical planting and harvesting seasons, particularly in the Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions. Renewed hostility in Darfur has resulted in over 200,000 people being displaced since the beginning of 2014.

Domestic cereal prices have meanwhile been rising steadily since May-June 2013, and by March 2014 had reached record levels in most markets, significantly reducing the purchasing power of vulnerable families. The price of sorghum, the main staple, was more than 70 percent higher in March 2014 than in March 2013.

Staple food prices are expected to continue to increase rapidly from February to June 2014 by an average of 10-15 percent, FAO said.