Sudans war heralds imminent famine
Moatinoon - Al-Asmai Bashari
The Sudans war between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has intervened; Its eighth month, military operations continue to threaten civilians in Khartoum, Kordofan and Darfur, while mass displacements continue towards cities and countryside far from the flames of war.
According to economists, the war directly affected the levels of agricultural production on which most Sudanese depend, by widening the gap, and an imminent threat to the failure of the previous agricultural season, with scarce rains in production areas, difficult access to agricultural inputs, and increased prices of goods and products in exchange for reduced incomes for individuals and families.
In the states of the Nile River, Al-Jazeera and Al-Qadarif, despite their relative remoteness from the epicentres of the military conflict, they are considered agricultural production areas. Farmers complain about the loss of funding opportunities and the absence of the States role in providing services that enable them to undertake various agricultural operations, despite the intervention of international organizations such as the Agriculture and Food Organization and United Nations agencies to address potential failures.
In the same vein, the Darfur Regions Democratic Observatory for Human Rights issued a statement yesterday, stating that the continuation of the war has directly affected the livelihoods of agriculture and market movements, and that the failure of the agricultural season threatens famine and the lives of thousands of displaced persons.
The Deputy United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan warned of an imminent famine, as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) needed urgent new funding to avert an imminent humanitarian disaster in the Sudan, at about 800 thousand.
In Khartoum, where hostilities are taking place in the midst of civilians homes and markets, an area threatened by the depletion of important food commodities. After the crazy rise in sugar prices, several food commodities followed the same approach, most notably onions, which saw an unprecedented rise yesterday, reaching a quarter of onions of 12 thousand pounds, according to citizens surveyed by them. A trader in the central market in Khartoum said that there was a marked rise in the price of vegetables and foodstuffs, and a near disappearance of the commodity of chickpeas exploited in the falafel industry, on which a wide spectrum of residents of the capital Khartoum depend as a low-priced main meal.
During the war months, central kitchens in Khartoum State were spread by local emergency rooms in old Omdurman, Althawrat, Al-Jiref West and Shambat, South Belt and others. The kitchens supervisors, working to contain thousands of families whose economic conditions have prevented them from leaving war zones, complain of scarce funding, scarce food and the obscene boil that has hit available small markets.
