(See also the original WFP press release, reprinted on ReliefWeb.)
The United Nations warned on Tuesday that its food distribution operations in southern and eastern Sudan faced a chronic shortage of funds that could provoke a new humanitarian disaster in the African state.
The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said it needed $302 million to feed some 3.2 million people in the two regions this year but had so far managed to raise only $78 million.
"I am worried some areas may suffer a disaster if we don't have the resources to save lives," WFP Senior Deputy Executive Director Jean-Jacques Graisse said in a statement.
"This is the make-or-break time for millions of the world's poorest people. The world cannot in good conscience sit back with hands folded at this difficult and important time."
At least 60,000 people died of famine in 1998 in the south, a region that has been devastated by civil war.
The WFP said pockets of severe malnutrition had once again emerged in the region, adding that hunger was also afflicting the east of Sudan after decades of drought and poverty.
The total number of people requiring food aid across the vast country was more than six million, the WFP said, including some 2.5 million people in Darfur.
"We have to fight so many obstacles to reach people who need food in Africa's largest country," said Graisse. "Logistics, insecurity, banditry, and sadly above all low levels of donor funding all these combine to impede our work."
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