Much of North Darfur to be reliant on food aid for remainder of the year, millions of kids without education, many feared to be dying of malnutrition

According to the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-Net), due to inadequate rainfall (despite the rains of August), much of North Darfur State will be reliant on food aid in order to maintain minimally adequate food consumption while getting other essential things in unsustainable ways (this is called crisis level 2, yellow).  And households in parts of the Jebel Marra mountains near the intersection of Central, North and South Darfur States, are predicted to occasionally do without food, suffer acute malnutrition, or maintain essential food supply only by giving up other things that will cause them to do without food soon after (this is called crisis level 3, orange).  See pages three and four of the UNOCHA bulletin for Aug. 31 to Sept. 6, 2015:

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OCHA_Sudan_Weekly_Humanitarian_Bulletin_Issue_36_%2831_August_-_6_September_2015%29.pdf

And the UK-based aid group Tearfund, as well as UNICEF report an increased number of persons in Jebel Marra suffering from severe malnutrion.  Aid groups are worried that many of the patients who died in their hospitals in Nertiti came from the Jebel Marra area, suggesting that mortality may be increasing in that region.  Aid access to Jebel Marra has been intermittent at best for years, since the government and their allied militias have tried repeatedly to push out the rebels from this area.  See this Radio Dabanga article, which features a simple map pinpointing where Jebel Marra is in relation to the Darfur States’ borders:

https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/children-die-of-malnutrition-in-darfur-s-jebel-marra-ocha

Adding to this problem is the lack of adequate health resources and badly undefunded UNOCHA, World Food Programme and UN Humanitarian Air Service budgets (UNOCHA’s Sudan fund is only 39% funded).  UNHAS will close down at the end of this month if it is not dealt with.  This would be debilitating, since UNHAS often gets aid workers to parts of Darfur that cannot be reached any other way.

And as if all this were not enough, UNICEF reports that poverty, not enough schools and insecurity brought about by four decades of war in Sudan have resulted in over three million children being kept out of school in South Kordofan State, Blue Nile State and the five Darfur States:

https://www.dabangasudan.org/uploads/media/55eda440e5f1a.pdf