Britain’s foreign secretary was in the Sudanese capital on Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and tensions along the border with Ethiopia, Sudan's state news agency reported.
Dominic Raab, who arrived in Khartoum late Wednesday, was expected to meet with Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of Sudan’s ruling sovereign council, Sudan's prime minister and acting Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din, said SUNA.
The report quoted a statement by the United Kingdom's Embassy in Sudan saying Raab was to discuss the situation along the Sudan-Ethiopia border, where violent clashes between Sudanese forces and Ethiopian militias have taken place, leading to concerns of a potential military conflict between the neighboring countries.
Sudanese Prime MInister Abdullah Hamdok, right, meets with British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab in the Cabinet Building, in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. Raab was in the Sudanese capital Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and tensions along the border with Ethiopia, Sudan's state news agency reported. (AP Photo)
Raab was also expected to discuss the ongoing water dispute between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. The dispute is over Ethiopia's construction of a controversial dam on the Blue Nile River, the main tributary of the Nile.
Raab also planned to meet with several civil society leaders, SUNA said.
Sudan is on a fragile path to democratic rule after a popular uprising led the military to overthrow longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, after nearly three decades of rule. A military-civilian government is now in power.
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok, right, meets with British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab in the Cabinet Building, in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. Raab was in the Sudanese capital Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and tensions along the border with Ethiopia, Sudan's state news agency reported. (AP Photo)
“Sudan is passing through a critical juncture in its transition to democracy,” Raab was quoted by SUNA as saying. “The U.K. takes pride in standing by the side of the Sudanese people."
Sudanese Prime MInister Abdullah Hamdok, right, bumps elbows with British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab in the Cabinet Building, in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. Raab was in the Sudanese capital Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and tensions along the border with Ethiopia, Sudan's state news agency reported. (AP Photo)
Sudanese Finance Minister Heba Mohamed Ali, left, and British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab sign copies of a Memorandum of Understanding, in the Cabinet Building, in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. Raab was in the Sudanese capital Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and tensions along the border with Ethiopia, Sudan's state news agency reported. (AP Photo)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza as the territory with the largest number of people facing famine, according to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday.
The U.N. report said 24 million more people faced an acute lack of food than in 2022, due to the sharp deterioration in food security, especially in the Gaza Strip and Sudan. The number of nations with food crises that are monitored has also been expanded.
Máximo Torero, chief economist for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, said 705,000 people in five countries are at Phase 5, the highest level, on a scale of hunger determined by international experts — the highest number since the global report began in 2016 and quadruple the number that year.
Over 80% of those facing imminent famine — 577,000 people — were in Gaza, he said. South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Mali each host many thousands also facing catastrophic hunger.
According to the report’s future outlook, around 1.1 million people in Gaza, where the Israel-Hamas war is now in its seventh month, and 79,000 in South Sudan are projected to be in Phase 5 and facing famine by July.
It said conflict will also continue to drive food insecurity in Haiti, where gangs control large portions of the capital.
Additionally, while the El Nino phenomenon peaked in early 2024, “its full impact on food security – including flooding and poor rain in parts of east Africa and drought in southern Africa, especially Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – are like to manifest throughout the year.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the report “a roll call of human failings,” and that “in a world of plenty, children are starving to death.”
“The conflicts erupting over the past 12 months compound a dire global situation,” he wrote in the report's foreword.
Guterres highlighted the conflict in the Gaza Strip, as the enclave holds the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger. There is also the year-old conflict in Sudan, which has created the world's largest internal displacement crisis “with atrocious impacts on hunger and nutrition,” he added.
According to the report, over 36 million people in 39 countries and territories are facing an acute hunger emergency, a step below the famine level in Phase 4, with more than a third in Sudan and Afghanistan. It's an increase of a million people from 2022, the report said.
Arif Husain, the U.N. World Food Program’s chief economist, said every year since 2016 the numbers of people acutely food insecure have gone up, and they are now more than double the numbers before the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the report looks at 59 countries, he said the target is to get data from 73 countries where there are people who are acutely food insecure.
Secretary-General Guterres called for an urgent response to the report’s findings that addresses the underlying causes of acute hunger and malnutrition while transforming the systems that supply food. Funding is also not keeping pace with the needs, he stressed.
“We must have the funding, and we also must have the access,” WFP’s Husain said, stressing that both “go hand-in-hand” and are essential to tackle acute food insecurity.
The report is the flagship publication of the Food Security Information Network and is based on a collaboration of 16 partners including U.N. agencies, regional and multinational bodies, the European Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, technical organizations and others.
FILE - Palestinians line up for a meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. According to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday, April 24, nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza the territory with the largest number of people facing famine. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File)
