WFP calls for full access to Sudan amid looming famine

The World Food Programme has called on the warring parties in Sudan's conflict to grant full access to the agency as the country faces the imminent threat of famine.

Sudan has been gripped by war since April 2023 between the regular armed forces led by the country's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and resulted in one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes, including targeting civilians and preventing aid from reaching those in need, as well as using methods that amount to starving millions.

"We want complete and unfettered access as well as the ability to get in through as many different entry points into Sudan as possible," WFP's executive director Cindy McCain told news agency AFP on Sunday.

She warned that with the whole of Sudan currently at famine alert level and famine already declared at Darfur's Zamzam camp, "it will spread so it's really urgent and that we can get in and we can do it at scale".

About 11.3 million people have been uprooted by the war, among them nearly three million who have fled outside Sudan, according to the UN refugee agency.

About 26 million people face acute food insecurity, and a UN-backed assessment in August said the war had pushed the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur state into famine.

"For us it's about getting food and trucks in there so it's important that the gates stay open," McCain said, adding that this included not just Sudan's border crossing with Chad but all crossings into the country.

"We need as many of them open as possible," she said.

On October 18, Western countries including Britain, the United States, France and Germany urged both sides in war-torn Sudan to let in "urgently required" aid to millions of people in dire need.

"The two sides' systematic obstruction of local and international humanitarian efforts is at the root of this famine," the European and North American nations said in a joint statement.