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Sudan’s conflict between rival generals “risks triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis”, the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday.

Sudan’s conflict has “shattered millions of lives and created the world’s largest displacement crisis. Now this catastrophe also risks becoming the world’s largest hunger crisis, unless fighting stops,” Cindy McCain, head of the WFP said.

The conflict in Sudan between Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted on April 15, 2023.

More than 13,000 people have been killed since the fighting broke out, according to recent estimates released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Meanwhile, more and more people flee into South Sudan and Chad and the humanitarian response is at breaking point.

The WFP says newly arrived displaced people in South Sudan make up 35 percent of those facing catastrophic levels of hunger despite accounting for less than 3 percent of the population. Additionally, one in five children at the transit centres at the main border crossing is malnourished. With current resources, WFP is struggling to keep pace with the significant level of need.

“I met mothers and children who have fled for their lives not once, but multiple times, and now hunger is closing in on them,” said McCain. “The consequences of inaction go far beyond a mother unable to feed her child and will shape the region for years to come. Today I am making an urgent plea for the fighting to stop, and that all humanitarian agencies must be allowed to do their life-saving work.”