Women are bearing the brunt of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, with the majority of female-headed households not having enough food to eat, the U.N. said on Friday.

“Female-headed households are now three times more likely to be food insecure. Three-quarters of these households report not having enough to eat,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva.

“Hunger is becoming increasingly gendered,” he added, pointing to pre-existing gender inequalities in the country being exacerbated by the ongoing conflict, which entered its 1,000th day on Friday.

UN Women has previously warned that women face the risk of sexual violence while searching for food.

UN agencies called for immediate international action to provide aid to the Darfur city of al-Fashir, taken by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in late October, as well as to Kadugli, another besieged city in Sudan’s south. Both cities are facing famine.

More than 100,000 are estimated to have fled al-Fashir since the RSF took control there following an 18-month siege.

OCHA said it is looking to make Sudan the first country to sign an agreement with the United States to receive part of the $2 billion in assistance it pledged at the end of December.

More than 21 million people are currently estimated to be acutely food insecure across the country.

Some 34 million people require humanitarian support, half of whom are children, according to the UN.

OCHA said it did not yet have an update on further plans to visit al-Fashir after international aid staff accessed the city for the first time in December since its takeover by the RSF. 

(Reuters/NAN)