MILLIONS of people fleeing the conflict in Sudan risk falling deeper into hunger as they seek refuge in neighbouring countries already grappling with food insecurity, the United Nations has warned.

UN agency the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Monday that over four million Sudanese refugees in the Central African Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Uganda and Chad are at risk of suffering further food insecurity as crucial funding for lifesaving food assistance is expected to dwindle in the coming months.

Around 40,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million displaced by Sudan’s civil war between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since it began in April 2023, according to UN agencies.

Nearly half of the population remaining in Sudan faces acute food insecurity, with some areas hit by malnutrition, which has killed 239 children in the past six months in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, the Sudan Doctors Network said.

The group said the children had died as a result of severe shortages of food and medicine and the bombing of nutrition warehouses.

But those fleeing the conflict continue to suffer from malnutrition even beyond Sudan’s borders.

“Refugees from Sudan are fleeing for their lives and yet are being met with more hunger, despair and limited resources on the other side of the border,” said WFP emergency co-ordinator Shaun Hughes on Tuesday. 

“Food assistance is a lifeline for vulnerable refugee families with nowhere else to turn.”

Food insecurity and famine conditions have spread across Sudan. The Darfur Victims Support Organisation posted pictures on social media on Tuesday showing scores of citizens queuing up to receive a meal from a charity kitchen. 

The group appealed to international organisations to take notice of the humanitarian situation in El Fasher and called on armed groups to declare a truce and open corridors to deliver much-needed civilian aid.

The southern part of the city saw renewed clashes between the army and the RSF on Monday morning, despite the UN calling for a week-long ceasefire in the city to allow aid distribution, which the Sudanese army accepted, the Darfur-based group said.

The El Fasher Resistance Committee said on Sunday that heavy artillery shelling had targeted several residential areas and the livestock market for the third day in a row, killing and injuring civilians amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in the area.