Nearly five million people are at risk of slipping into a state of “catastrophic food insecurity” in the coming months in war-torn Sudan, a UN document obtained by AFP said on Friday, as the international body appealed for unfettered access and an end to fire.

“Without urgent humanitarian aid and access to basic products,” these nearly 5 million Sudanese, already in a state of food emergency (level 4 on the IPC five-point scale), “could slide into a state of catastrophic food insecurity in some parts of the country in the coming months,” summarizes Martin Griffiths, the head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in this document, which was submitted to the member states of the Security Council.

The IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) is the classification scale of food insecurity used by UN agencies.

“Populations classified as phase 4 in West Darfur and Central Darfur are likely to move to phase 5,” warns Mr Griffiths.

In the most recent IPC report, it was estimated that 4.9 million people were in phase 4 (emergency) in Sudan, including over 300,000 in Central Darfur and over 400,000 in West Darfur. None were yet classified as phase 5 (“starvation”).

However, in total, almost 18 million Sudanese now face severe food insecurity (phase 3 and higher), a tragic “record” figure, especially during the harvest season, and 10 million higher than in the corresponding period of last year.

Women, children and displaced people are even more “at risk”, Martin Griffiths warns, noting that nearly 730,000 children, including 240,000 in Darfur, are estimated to be acutely malnourished.

“There is already an unprecedented increase in the treatment of acute dehydration, the deadliest form of malnutrition, in areas where there is access,” says the top UN official, worrying about more inaccessible areas, where “nearly three-quarters of the 4.7 million . children in a state of acute malnutrition and pregnant or lactating women, who urgently need help”.

It calls for “urgent action” to prevent the risk of this disaster becoming “entrenched”, calling in particular for better access by aid agencies, more money and a ceasefire.

“To reach those in need, humanitarian organizations need safe, rapid, continuous and unhindered access, especially along the front lines,” said Stéphane Dujarric, the UN Secretary-General’s spokesman, earlier yesterday.

“A massive mobilization of resources from the international community is also absolutely necessary,” he insisted, while the UN’s $2.7 billion plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Sudan in 2024 is only <5% funded .

There are sufficient quantities of humanitarian aid in the warehouses in Port Sudan, but there is a problem with the population’s access, said Jill Lawler of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), who returned from the Khartoum region, requesting humanitarian organizations are allowed to move along the front lines and can cross borders to or from neighboring countries.

In early March, the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) was already sounding the alarm, warning that the protracted armed conflict threatened to “create the world’s biggest famine crisis” in the African country, which is already experiencing its biggest population displacement crisis on the planet.

The war that has been raging since April 15, 2023 between the armed forces of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the feared Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the former second-in-command of the military regime, has claimed the lives of thousands of people and have turned more than 8 million citizens into internally displaced persons and refugees, according to the UN.

The regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Hanan Balhi, emphasized for her part the extent to which the health situation has worsened, especially in Darfur.

“Most health facilities were looted, damaged or destroyed. In West Darfur, the health system is paralyzed,” the official said.

On the other side of the country, in Port Sudan, health facilities are providing care “to 2 to 4 times more patients than usual,” she added, referring mainly to the fight against infectious diseases such as cholera.