Khartoum, Sep 04, 2024, IANS

Khartoum, Sep 4 (IANS) Three international aid organisations issued a dire warning about the escalating humanitarian crisis in Sudan, declaring that the country is experiencing a starvation crisis of unprecedented proportions. The Norwegian Refugee Council, the Danish Refugee Council, and Mercy Corps said in a joint statement that the Sudanese people are dying of hunger amidst a "deafening" silence from the international community, Xinhua news agency reported. "The level of suffering endured by the Sudanese people in recent months is impossible to express with words alone," the aid groups said. They noted that the international response has been grossly inadequate, with the humanitarian response plan led by the United Nations currently only 41 per cent funded. "The silence is deafening. People are dying of hunger every day, and yet the focus remains on semantic debates and legal definitions," the statement said. More than 25 million people -- over half of Sudan's population -- are facing acute food insecurity, and many families have been forced to subsist on a single meal a day or resort to eating leaves and insects, it added. The UN has previously warned of the risk of famine in certain areas of Sudan, and a recent report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs highlighted the severity of the crisis. However, the Sudanese government has disputed these claims, denying the existence of a food gap and dismissing earlier reports of famine in the country as "exaggerated." Since the outbreak of conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, millions of people have been displaced. The ongoing violence has crippled the country's economy and disrupted essential services, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.