Fighting between the army and paramilitaries for power in Sudan is still raging on Friday and could push more than two million more people into hunger, warns the UN.
“
The World Food Program predicts that the number of acutely malnourished people will increase to between 2 and 2.5 million, increasing the total number to 19 million in the next three to six months if the conflict continues,” said Farhan Haq
. , Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary General.
700 dead since mid-April
Faced with the
"catastrophe"
denounced for three weeks by humanitarian workers, the international community is struggling to act in organized ranks.
The UN Human Rights Council will hold a special session on May 11, almost a month after the outbreak of hostilities.
This emergency meeting is being convened at the official request submitted Friday evening jointly by the United Kingdom, Norway, the United States and Germany, which has been supported by 52 states so far, according to a statement from the Council.
On the 21st day of the conflict, airstrikes and explosions continued to rock different neighborhoods of Khartoum, despite promises of a truce, witnesses told AFP.
Clashes between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane's army and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have claimed around 700 lives since April 15, according to the NGO ACLED, which lists conflict victims.
Among them, an
“incredibly”
high number of children, according to the UN, in a country where 49% of the inhabitants are under 18 years old.
Read alsoIn Sudan, hospitals targeted
The fighting left more than 5,000 injured, displaced at least 335,000 people and pushed 115,000 others into exile, according to the UN, which is claiming 402 million euros to help the country, one of the poorest in the world.
The UN warns that 860,000 people, Sudanese but also many South Sudanese returning to their country, could cross the borders in the coming months.
"More than 56,000 people"
have arrived in Egypt, according to the UN,
"30,000 in Chad"
,
"more than 12,000"
in Ethiopia and 10,000 in the Central African Republic.