FAMINE is deepening in war-torn Sudan, reports confirmed today, with little food in markets and aid groups saying that they’re struggling to reach the most vulnerable people as warring parties limit access.

More than 24,000 people have died and millions more have been injured or displaced since the civil war erupted in Sudan between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces last April.

For months, Aziza Abrahim fled from one village in Sudan to the next as people were slaughtered. Yet the killing of relatives and her husband’s disappearance are not what forced her to leave the country for good. It was hunger, she said.

“We don’t have anything to eat because of the war,” she said.

Awatif Adam came to Chad in October. Her husband wasn’t making enough from transporting people with his donkey cart and it was too risky to farm, she said. 

Her twin girls and young son all lost weight and were always hungry.

“My children were saying all the time: ‘Mom, give us food’,” Ms Adam said. 

Aid experts warn that some 25 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — are expected to face acute hunger this year.

Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general Jan Egeland said: “People are starving to death at the moment … It’s man-made. It’s these men with guns and power who deny women and children food.”

Warring parties on both sides are blocking aid supplies and delaying authorisation for humanitarian groups, he said.

A Doctors Without Borders (MSF)-run clinic in the Aboutengue camp admitted more than 340 cases of severely malnourished children in August and September. Staff fear that number could rise. 

People are fleeing Sudan into difficult conditions, said Dr Oula Dramane Ouattara, head of MSF medical activities in the camp.

“If things go on like this, I’m afraid the situation will get out of control,” he said.