The US and 30 other Western states have warned of an “alarming deterioration” in food security in Sudan, urging the warring sides in the civil war to remove obstacles to humanitarian aid to prevent famine.

In a joint statement, the signatories said conflict was the main driver of Sudan’s hunger crisis, damaging critical infrastructure and disrupting food production.

“There is very little to survive on,” Yusuf Roble, regional director for Islamic Relief East Africa, told BBC Newsday, describing how people returning to Omdurman were finding their homes destroyed or looted.

The war, which began in April 2023, has displaced 14 million people.

The statement, external was signed by EU states, the UK, Canada, Switzerland and Norway, as well as the US, where it was published by the state department on Monday after first appearing on the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations website.

It estimates that 19.5 million people or 41% of Sudan’s population are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, including five million facing emergency levels of hunger.

“I met a mother of seven children who doesn’t really know the whereabouts of her husband for the last three and a half years and he was the breadwinner, the sole breadwinner for the family,” Roble said.

While the war in Sudan has led to what the World Health Organization has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Roble said only 40% of Sudan’s 2026 humanitarian needs plan had been funded as of September.

“Their meals come from the community kitchen, which doesn’t really even have very long-term support because of funding cuts,” Roble added.

The joint statement warns that “the number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition could exceed the projected 825,000” without immediate action.

The crisis is being exacerbated by what the signatories describe as systematic obstruction of aid and the effects of El Niño, which has reduced rainfall and increased drought across more than half of Sudan.

“The parties to the conflict bear primary responsibility for alleviating the suffering of the Sudanese people,” the statement says, urging them to lift all impediments to humanitarian assistance and allow full, safe, rapid and unimpeded access.

In June, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a measure of the severity and magnitude of food crises, estimated that 5.1 million people in Sudan faced severe hunger.

The civil war in Sudan began in April 2023 following a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.