Attachments
Increased Intercommunal clashes, flooding, and high food prices continue to drive high needs
Key Messages
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Sudan will continue facing increased food assistance needs through September 2021 (the peak of the lean season) as extremely high food prices continue to limit poor household purchasing power, along with conflict and flooding reducing availability and access to food and income. The number of households facing Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes is expected to remain high among IDPs and people recently affected by tribal clashes in Darfur, Kordofan, and White Nile states, flood-affected households, Ethiopian and South Sudanese refugees, poor households in eastern and western Sudan who have exhausted their food stocks, and urban poor households.
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Through August, above normal seasonal rains have been reported over Sudan, although below-average rainfall and flooding occurred in some areas. According to CHIRPS remote sensing products, cumulative rainfall has been above normal across most of Sudan as of mid-August. The above-average seasonal rainfall is likely to benefit crop yields and pasture conditions and increase the risk of flooding in low-lying and riverine areas. However, planted areas and yields are likely to be adversely affected by fuel shortages and high prices of agricultural inputs.
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Between June and July, staple food prices have continued to increase by 10-20 percent seasonally and remain significantly above average across most markets in Sudan. Seasonally reduced market supplies, increased demand for local consumption, extremely high production and transportation costs, persistent shortages and the high cost of imported wheat and wheat flour, and the continued devaluation of the Sudanese Pound is limiting poor household access to food during the lean season. Staple food prices remained 120-200 percent higher than the respective prices last year and over five times the five-year average between June and July.
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Intercommunal conflict incidents have significantly increased in Darfur and some other parts of the country during July and August 2021, with the start of rainy season cultivation and seasonal movements of nomads into the northern wet season grazing areas. The violence is likely to track with the seasonal movements of nomadic groups into southern grazing areas at the start of the transhumance in October/November 2021, which coincides with the agricultural harvest period.