Sudan’s despair: no sign of truce, famine looms as war nears one-year anniversary

With Sudan’s war about to enter its second year next week, the country has been embroiled in a fierce conflict with two rival military factions led by powerful generals at loggerheads, with Sudanese civilians suffering the consequences of a one-year bloody conflict with no end in sight.
Fighting in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) let by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group controlled by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, has been ongoing for almost one year. The two generals are fighting for control over Africa’s third-largest country and its vast resources, along the way killing thousands and sparking a humanitarian disaster. Around 25 million people — more than half the population — need aid, including nearly 18 million who face acute food insecurity, the United Nations has warned. Amnesty International (AI) had earlier found that both factions had committed violations, including murder and forced displacements fueled by illegal arms supplies into the battlefield.
Meanwhile, following talks to reopen humanitarian corridors from Chad, the UN has finally started distributing food in Sudan’s Darfur for the first time in months amid warnings of impending famine. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said two aid convoys have crossed the border from Chad, carrying food and nutrition assistance for about 250,000 people for a month in West and Central Darfur. With the situation in Sudan’s war-ravaged region having been particularly severe as brutal attacks by the RSF reviving fears of another genocide, the world body warned in March that 222,000 children could die from malnutrition in the coming months unless their aid needs are urgently met.