WFP: Famine in Sudan is a “wake-up call” for the international community

The Assistant Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Stephen Omollo, stressed that the humanitarian crisis in Sudan has not received the political and diplomatic attention it desperately needs. However, it has wider implications and threatens to destabilize the region.

The UN official stressed that confirming the existence of famine must be a wake-up call for the international community and members of the Security Council, pointing to the obstruction of movement approvals across conflict lines, which severely limits the amount of aid that passes, and prevents us from working on a large scale.

The Assistant Executive Director of the World Food Programme stressed that despite the enormous challenges facing the programme's teams on the ground, it is working day and night to deliver life-saving food where it is most needed. Omollo said: "WFP will prioritize reaching people facing emergency and catastrophic levels of hunger in the fourth and fifth phases of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, along with internally displaced people."

He stressed that the need, in particular, Urgent, to help the Security Council "ensure that we can do our job effectively, without interference", pointing to the lack of funding for the humanitarian response in Sudan, which "must change if we are to save lives".