The United Nations World Food Programme warns that more than a fifth of children under 5 in Darfur are malnourished, and nearly half of all families do not have enough food.
The results of the first nutritional survey in western Sudan were released on 26 October. The report says, “A basic minimum public health package, including adequate supplies of clean water and medicine, should accompany food and nutrition aid.”
“While much has been done for months now to feed as many people as possible in Darfur, the survey underlines how much remains to be done,” said Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the programme's country director. “But food alone is not enough—the response also has to be significantly stronger on water, sanitation, and health.”
The programme collected data about more than 5000 people at 56 sites to assess their nutrition and food security and found that the malnutrition rate for children in Darfur under the age of five was 21.8% and that 3.9% of children had severe acute malnutrition.
Only 18% of malnourished children in need of supplementary feeding were being reached, and none of the seriously malnourished children in the sample of families surveyed received therapeutic feeding.
“There was a problem of capacity,” said Mr Lopes da Silva, “There were so many people who went hungry that we first had to give food to everyone. Only now can we start expanding to give special additional rations to every child under 5 and pregnant women. We also found that many women with sick children simply did not know that these centres exist.”
Nearly a quarter of displaced people were critically short of food with aid not reaching 16% in adequate amounts. Eight percent did not receive any help with food at all.
Health problems are widespread with more than two fifths of children having diarrhoea and 18% acute respiratory infections. The survey also found a need to improve immunisation against measles: a third of children aged between 9 and 59 months were left out of a recent vaccination campaign.
Many children and women—including pregnant women—were deficient in minerals and vitamins. More than half of children and a quarter of women have anaemia. The survey found a 26% prevalence of goitre—an enlargement of the thyroid caused by a lack of iodine—among non-pregnant mothers.
“The situation is very precarious,” said the programme's senior nutritionist Rita Bhatia, who co-led the 70 team members in Darfur on the three week survey, “Humanitarian assistance is going to be required for some time and needs to be increased.”
The United Nations Security Council is to convene an extraordinary session on Sudan in neighbouring Kenya next week.
The survey, Emergency Food Security and Nutrition Assessment in Darfur, Sudan , is available from www.wfp.org.