GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that starvation in war-stricken Sudan “is almost everywhere”, describing the situation as “alarming” amid massive displacement.
In an interview with the BBC’s Today program after visiting Sudan, WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros said, “The situation in Sudan is very alarming… the massive displacement – it’s now the largest in the world, and, of course, famine.”.
The WHO chief warned about the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding in Sudan. He highlighted the severe impact of the ongoing civil war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which erupted in April 2023. The conflict has resulted in widespread destruction, massive displacement, and now, a severe famine affecting millions.
“Imagine: destruction, displacement, diseases everywhere, and now famine,” Dr. Tedros said. He reported that approximately 12 million people have been displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. The WHO chief noted that nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, are in urgent need of humanitarian support.
Dr. Tedros described the harrowing scenes he witnessed during his visit, including emaciated children at a camp for internally displaced persons and severe shortages of food and medical care. He expressed concern over the lack of global attention to the crisis, suggesting that racial bias may be influencing the disparity in international response.
“The global attention to Sudan is really low, and I think race is playing a role,” Dr. Tedros said. “We see this pattern repeatedly with other recent conflicts in Africa.”
Drawing from his own experiences growing up during wartime in Ethiopia, Dr. Tedros compared the current situation in Sudan to other crisis regions, including Gaza, emphasizing the need for a more equitable response from the international community.
Dr. Tedros recalled the disparity in aid allocation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, where he noted that the global response to conflicts in African nations like Tigray in Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria was disproportionately less.
The WHO chief called on mainstream media to increase coverage of the crisis in Sudan, labeling it as a “tragedy” that deserves greater attention. His remarks underscore the broader issue of uneven humanitarian support and the challenges faced by conflict-ridden regions that do not receive the same level of international focus.
In August, a UN-backed committee of experts declared a famine in a camp near el-Fasher in Darfur, which houses about 500,000 displaced people and is among the regions hardest hit by the conflict. The crisis has been exacerbated by political instability, including the fallout from a 2021 coup led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, which eventually spiraled into full-scale civil war.
