Amid Sudan's war, people eat leaves and cats to survive
STORY: As starvation set in amid Sudan's year-old war, Lina Mohammed Hassan's family resorted to extreme measures to survive.
“The children were collecting tree leaves and eating them. They took mango leaves and ate them. My cousins walked next to the school and collected the tree leaves, cooked them, and ate them, because we didn't know if we would have food for breakfast."
Hassan was living in the Banat neighborhood of Khartoum, caught between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. In February she was able to flee to another part of the city controlled by the army.
But people still remain trapped in more than a dozen districts across the city.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a global authority on food insecurity, reported in March that areas of Khartoum are at "risk of famine".
And it's not just the capital.
With the conflict between the army and the RSF showing no sign of abating, hunger and starvation is spreading across the country.
At some displacement camps in North Darfur, residents, medics and aid workers say people have resorted to eating soil and leaves.
“We are moving towards famine and the anecdotal evidence is not encouraging."
Justin Brady is head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan.
He says two previous, famine prevention operations he worked on in Somalia were successful because they were facilitated by authorities, there was upfront funding when it was needed, and there was expertise on the ground.
But he warns that fighting famine in Sudan is more challenging.
"If we are working from where we are right now, with the impediments we have, with the lack of resources we have, there’s nothing we'll be able to do to stop that."
Some aid officials have accused the RSF of looting humanitarian aid, and the Sudanese army of preventing aid from reaching those who need it most.
Neither side responded to detailed questions for this report.
The military-led government has said it is committed to the delivery of aid.
The RSF denies looting and says any rogue actors in its ranks will be held responsible.
Lieutenant General Ibrahim Jaber is the military’s second in command.
“Sudan has production that is more than it needs and this is reassuring. This is clear evidence and answer to everyone who’s defaming and saying there will be a famine in Sudan. There’s no famine in Sudan.”
Despite that claim, Mutawakel Abdel Razek who lives in Omdurman, one of three cities on the banks of the Nile that comprise the capital, says people there have been trying to "live off anything".
“People find solutions. Pigeons. They eat pigeons. The geese in the river. Any birds. Small birds. It was normal. They also ate cats... There were people in the neighborhood who ate the cats. Either you die from hunger or find a way.”
Almost 18 million people in Sudan, more than a third of the population, are facing "high levels of acute food insecurity", according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
The globally recognized hunger monitor said that of this group, nearly five million are one step from famine.
Immediate action is needed, it said in March, to prevent "widespread death and total collapse of livelihoods and avert a catastrophic hunger crisis in Sudan".
Despite the deepening food crisis, the situation in Sudan has drawn less international scrutiny than other humanitarian emergencies in places such as Gaza and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, residents and medical NGO Doctors Without Borders say people are already dying from disease and malnutrition - in what some observers call "the forgotten war".
