Sudan’s agriculture minister Abubakr al-Bushra has said there is no famine in the country while rejecting the U.N.-backed data that 755,000 are experiencing catastrophic hunger.
The minister also rejected the idea of aid agencies overriding cross-border delivery restrictions.
Sudan has become the world’s worst hunger crisis since the outbreak of a war between the Sudanese army, whose head is also Sudan’s head of state, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who have taken over wide swathes of the country.
“755,000 citizens are not a significant percentage compared to the total population … they cannot call that famine,” said Abubakr al-Bushra, in a news conference in Port Sudan, the country’s de facto capital.
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The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an initiative of U.N. agencies, regional bodies and aid groups, had in late June said that while half the population were experiencing acute hunger, there were 14 spots across the country at risk of famine.
Al-Bushra, however, cast doubt on experts’ ability to measure data in RSF-controlled areas, and said the malnutrition indicators had not yet been determined.
Following the IPC data, an independent committee could declare a famine, potentially triggering Security Council orders overriding army restrictions on which crossings could be used for aid deliveries.
Al-Bushra said the government rejected such orders.
“We reject the opening of our borders by force because that could open the borders with opposing states, borders that the militia controls,” he said, while another official cast such a move as part of a conspiracy against the country.
