Urgent appeal for 2.9 million people

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) made an urgent appeal on Tuesday for US $135 million for 2.9 million Sudanese affected by drought and civil war in both government and rebel-held areas. Masood Hyder, WFP's Country Representative in Sudan, said from Khartoum there was a "looming crisis" which needed an urgent response. "We don't have time on our hands,", Lindsey Davis, WFP Information Officer, told IRIN - "the point is, if nothing is done now people are definitely going to be running out of food by April."

In January, humanitarian agencies sounded the alarm after a joint WFP and Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) report confirmed that erratic rains had severely affected crop production last year with serious food and water shortages emerging in a number of districts. WFP said in a press release issued on Tuesday that food deliveries had already been increased through food for work activities and school feeding programmes in the north. In the south, emergency food distributions continued, the press release said. It said drought had widened to hit both the northern and southern parts of Sudan, particularly in north Darfur and Kordofan regions, as well as Eastern Equatoria and northern Bahr el Ghazal. Drought in the south had been made worse "by continued fighting". In the western cattle farming areas of Kordofan and Darfur, food prices had more than doubled. Families were selling their livestock to raise cash to buy food, said the WFP statement. "Grain stores are already low and cattle are fetching a pittance at market. Water points are drying up and villages have started to empty", it said. Malnutrition was rising in Eastern Equatoria and parts of Bahr el Ghazal and Jonglei, warned WFP. "Hunger is expected to be worst in the 1998 famine zones of Bahr el Ghazal and in Upper Nile where the conflict continues", said the statement.