ANKARA

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan is worsening, leaving millions in urgent need of aid, the UN said on Friday, warning that 3.7 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition.

“There are 3.7 million children under five projected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year alone who are in urgent need of life-saving treatment,” the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a joint statement.

“These children are already weakened by hunger. If not reached soon, these children are 11 times more likely to die from preventable diseases than their healthier peers inside Sudan,” warned the statement.

There is a severe shortage of access to essential services like clean water, health care, and shelter, said the statement.

“As we witness the collapse of vital infrastructure, the international response must intensify immediately to match the overwhelming scale of need,” it added.

Calls from the UN and the international community for an end to the fighting are increasing as the war threatens to push millions into famine and death due to food shortages caused by the conflict, which has spread to 13 of Sudan’s 18 states.

Since mid-April 2023, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been engaged in the conflict, resulting in over 20,000 deaths and more than 10 million displaced people and refugees, according to the UN.