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Sudanese women in a food line (archive)

Photo: ZOHRA BENSEMRA / REUTERS

Urgent appeal: The UN Security Council has called on the conflict parties in Sudan to call for a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

At a meeting on Friday in New York, 14 members of the Security Council voted in favor of a resolution introduced by Great Britain, with only Russia abstaining.

The parties to the conflict are also called upon to “find a lasting solution” to the crisis through dialogue.

They should also enable unhindered access for aid deliveries across national borders and front lines.

Since April last year, the troops of military ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF militia of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have been engaged in a power struggle in Sudan.

It is estimated that at least 13,000 people have already been killed.

Aid groups have repeatedly warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis and health care problems in the country.

More than half of the country's approximately 25 million inhabitants are dependent on aid.

According to the UN, almost 18 million of them are affected by acute food insecurity.

The conflict between the army and paramilitaries in Sudan has sparked the world's largest refugee crisis.

According to the World Food Program (WFP), it is now threatening to become the world's largest hunger crisis.

More than 25 million people are starving in Sudan and in the neighboring states of South Sudan and Chad, where they have fled, the WFP said on Wednesday.

»Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world's largest hunger crisis and the global community came together to act.

But today the people of Sudan have been forgotten,” warned WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain.

Currently, 90 percent of the people who urgently need food aid are in areas inaccessible to aid organizations.

Millions of lives are at risk, said McCain.

According to the WFP, authorities have revoked permits for cross-border truck convoys.

Deliveries from neighboring Chad to the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan should therefore have been stopped.

More than a million people there have been dependent on the deliveries for months.

dop/AFP/dpa