THE nearly year-long conflict between Sudan’s military and paramilitary forces has put the African nation on course for the world’s worst hunger crisis, the United Nations warned on Wednesday.

Edem Wosornu, director of humanitarian operations, told the UN security council that already one-third of Sudan’s population of 18 million face acute food insecurity.

Ms Wosornu said catastrophic hunger levels could be reached in some areas of the western Darfur region by the time “the lean season arrives in May.”