UN and US say food is on its way to a famine-stricken camp in Sudan

CAIRO -- Food aid is on the way to an area of Sudan facing famine amid the northeast African country's grinding conflict, a group of countries and the United Nations said in a joint statement Friday.

The statement came at the conclusion of more than a week of talks in Geneva, Switzerland, aimed at calming the conflict, but that failed to bring together the two warring sides. The talks were convened as the country's humanitarian crisis worsens.

Last month, global experts said that starvation at a massive camp for displaced people in the Sudanese region of Darfur had grown into famine. And about 25.6 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — will face acute hunger, experts from the Famine Review Committee warned.

Aid trucks were rolling Friday to “provide famine relief in Zamzam Camp and other parts of Darfur,” said the joint statement from U.S., Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, the Africa Union, and the U.N. “These routes must remain open and safe so we can surge aid into Darfur and begin to turn the tide against famine.”

International experts use set criteria to confirm famines. Formal declarations of famines are usually made by the countries themselves or the United Nations.

Aid workers were last able to get humanitarian relief to the trapped civilians at the camps in Darfur in April.

The negotiations, which started Aug. 14, were meant to work towards a ceasefire. But one party to the civil war, Sudan’s military, did not send a delegation. The other party, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), sent a delegation to the city but did not appear to attend in-person. In their absence, diplomats pushed for food, medicine and basic aid to make it to areas that have been difficult to access due to fighting.

The group “secured guarantees from both parties to the conflict to provide safe and unhindered humanitarian access" through two key arteries, the statement said. Aid deliveries will likely still face huge obstacles, because of heavy flooding in recent weeks.

Both sides have traded accusations of attacking civilians and obstructing aid since the country’s war started in April 2023. Tensions between the military and the RSF turned into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading across the country.

The conflict has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation. The atrocities include mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.

There are also increasing concerns over a new outbreak of cholera. In the month since the first suspected cases of cholera were reported, more than 650 cases and 28 deaths have been reported in five states, the World Health Organization said Friday.

The spread of disease is “fueled by floods and poor water, hygiene and sanitation in displacement camps and communities,” it said.

WHO said an initial cholera vaccination campaign in Kassala in eastern Sudan has reached more than 50,000 people. It said more than 450,000 additional doses of oral cholera vaccine are in the pipeline to be delivered.

Sudan’s war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of them have fled to neighboring countries.