No food gap exists in Sudan: Official

Khartoum, Aug 27 (IANS) The Sudanese government on Tuesday denied any food gap in Sudan and called previous reports of famine in the country “exaggerated.”

“There is no food gap, and there is no famine in Khartoum State or other states,” Khartoum State’s Acting Minister of Agriculture Mohamed Siral-Khatim said in a statement.

“Maybe there is a shortage of food supplies in the areas controlled by the (paramilitary) Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia,” he said, Xinhua news agency reported.

Siral-Khatim said he has inspected some agricultural and animal production projects in the northern part of Omdurman, a city north of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, and found that those projects “produce enough food for all the safe areas” in northern Omdurman.

“If a safe road is found, the production can suffice other areas,” he added.

Khartoum State’s government is seeking to overcome the obstacles facing farmers, working to provide them with fuel, improved seeds, and fertilizers, Siral-Khatim said.

Stressing that the determination of famine relies on several indicators issued by the United Nations and its Food and Agriculture Organization, Siral-Khatim said those indicators do not exist in Sudan.

“There is an abundance of food products, and we are working to sustain them,” he said.

Earlier in August, the United Nations published a report saying that famine is prevalent in some areas of war-torn Sudan and will continue through the next two months.

A recent report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) showed that about 25.6 million people – more than half of the population of Sudan — face acute hunger, including more than 755,000 people on the brink of famine.

The risk of famine is particularly severe in 14 areas across the country, including some hotspots in Khartoum, the OCHA report showed.

Since April 15, 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a deadly conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, resulting in the loss of at least 16,650 lives. An estimated 10.7 million people are now internally displaced in Sudan, with approximately 2.2 million others seeking refuge in neighboring countries, according to the latest UN data.

–IANS
as/