Sudan risks becoming the "world’s largest hunger crisis," the head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.
Speaking following a visit to South Sudan where she met families displaced by the conflict in Sudan, WFP executive director Cindy McCain said that 25 million people were trapped in a "spiral of deteriorating food insecurity," but that the world was failing to respond.
She said: "The war in Sudan risks triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis.
"20 years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest hunger crisis and the world rallied to respond
"But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten."
"Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake," Ms McCain added.
Ms McCain said that she had met mothers and children who had "fled for their lives not once, but multiple times, and now hunger is closing in on them".
"The consequences of inaction go far beyond a mother unable to feed her child and will shape the region for years to come," she said.
She said WFP was making an urgent plea for the fighting to stop and for humanitarian agencies to be allowed free access to people in need.
The latest round of extreme violence in Sudan broke out last April due to a power struggle between the Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Both sides have been accused of carrying out atrocities against the civilian population.
The UN estimates that more than 14,000 people have been killed in the past 11 months and 26,000 others injured.
Millions have been driven from their homes to other parts of the country or to neighbouring countries including South Sudan, Chad and Egypt.
A report issued by the UN’s panel of experts to the Security Council last week found that sexual and gender-based violence carried out by the RSF and allied militia was widespread.
At a news conference this morning at UN headquarters in New York, the US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the report by the panel of experts detailed "stomach-churning findings".
She said the report laid out "atrocity, after atrocity, after atrocity…in horrifying detail."
"Women and girls, some as young as 14 years old, were raped by RSF elements and World Food Program storage facilities controlled by RSF," she told reporters, quoting the UN report.
"The international community is not doing nearly enough to address this dire crisis," Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said.
"Collectively, we're not doing nearly enough to alleviate the suffering of millions and millions of Sudanese," she said, adding that the Security Council had been "shamefully quiet" on the conflict thus far.
The US Ambassador added that she urged all parties that supply weapons to the warring parties to suspend deliveries.
A recent UN report found "credible evidence" that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was providing military support to the paramilitary RSF. UAE representatives at the UN have denied the claims.
Asked this morning whether the US supply of weapons to Israel for the bombardment of Gaza shows a "double standard" on the part of the United States, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said that he two conflicts were "completely different situations."
"What you have happening in Sudan is a civil war between two parties who are fighting themselves and fighting against their own people," she told reporters.
She said the US supported Israel's right to self-defence but that "the actions they take must be conscious of protecting civilians" in accordance with international law.
The escalating violence in Sudan comes at a time when the UN has just withdrawn its political mission from the country, following a request from the Sudanese military government.
Security Council diplomats expressed regret over the withdrawal, but said that the UN mission could not continue to operate without the blessing of the Sudanese authorities.
