African Union officials have described Sudan's civil war the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world" and warned it was leaving hundreds of thousands of children malnourished. This as the organisation's annual summit is set to open this weekend.
The Sudanese army has been at war since April 2023 with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a conflict that has displaced around 12 million people, the AU and the International Rescue Committee (ICR) said.
The conflict "has hampered access to humanitarian relief, led to shortage of food and aggravated hunger," the chairman of an African Union panel on Sudan, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said on Tuesday.
"Children and women are continually abused, and the elderly and sick lack medical assistance," he added.
"This is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world."
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Need for humanitarian access
A senior AU official for child welfare, Wilson Almeida Adao, said in a separate post that hospital admissions for malnutrition rose by 44 percent in 2024, with over 431,000 children receiving treatment.
"We witness reports of grave violations, including attacks on schools and hospitals, forced recruitment of child soldiers, and the denial of humanitarian access," he said.
The Sudanese army controls the east and north of the country while the RSF holds most of the stricken Darfur region, where the United Nations on Monday accused it of blocking aid.
For the AU, "only inter-Sudanese political dialogue, not the military option, can end this war," Chambas said.
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Impossible peace
The United Arab Emirates also called on Tuesday for a ceasefire in Sudan during the coming holy month of Ramadan, a UAE official said.
But the call was immediately rejected by the Sudanese army, as the country's civil war approaches the two-year mark.
The army considers the UAE to be an aggressor of the war, accusing it of arming the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, accusations UN experts and US lawmakers have said are credible.
The UAE denies these charges.
The Sudanese army claims to have made progress in Khartoum, in particular the recapture of a strategic sector in the north-east of the capital.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan also announced on 7 February that a transitional government would soon be formed.
(with newswires)
