Sudan: UNSC Briefing under the “Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict” Agenda Item

SLSUN: On Monday morning (6 January), the Security Council will hold a briefing on food insecurity in Sudan under the “Protection of civilians in armed conflict” agenda item. The expected briefers are Director of the Operations and Advocacy Division at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Edem Wosornu and Deputy Director-General at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Beth Bechdol. The meeting was requested by the UK (the penholder on Sudan), together with Guyana and Slovenia (the Council’s informal co-focal points on conflict and hunger), and supported by Denmark and Sierra Leone. Sudan is expected to participate under rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure.

The likely focus of the meeting is the 24 December 2024 report of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC), which provides an in-depth analysis of food insecurity levels in the country. The report “finds famine in at least five areas of Sudan for which reliable data exists”.

In this regard, it confirms that, during the period between October and November 2024, famine conditions in the Zamzam camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in North Darfur, identified in the FRC’s 1 August 2024 report, have persisted and expanded to other sites in North Darfur, namely the Al Salam and Abu Shouk IDP camps, as well as to the Western Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan state. The report projects famine conditions in five more areas between December 2024 and May, with a confirmed risk of famine in 17 additional areas during the same projection period. (According to the IPC, famine exists in “areas where at least one in five households has or is most likely to have an extreme deprivation of food”. In such situations, “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident”.) follow the link to continue reading