“Millions of people are impacted by the conflict. WFP has food in Sudan, but lack of humanitarian access and other unnecessary hurdles are slowing operations,” he said in a statement on Friday.

“Life-saving assistance is not reaching those who need it the most, and we are already receiving reports of people dying of starvation,” he added.

Since Sudan’s war began in April, nearly 18 million people across the country are facing acute hunger, and more than five million are experiencing emergency levels of hunger in areas worst affected by the conflict.

The WFP has called on Sudan’s warring factions – the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – to provide immediate guarantees for the unimpeded delivery of relief.

“People are really struggling to afford a basic meal a day. … Those experiencing the highest levels of hunger are resorting to extreme coping mechanisms to put food on their plates, including selling everything that they own,” Leni Kinzli, head of communications at the WFP Sudan, told Al Jazeera from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

“The biggest challenge actually is that we are not able to deliver assistance across conflict lines. … We are not getting security guarantees and the approvals to move commodities freely,” she added.

Limited aid deliveries

The WFP has been able to deliver aid to just one in 10 people in the conflict areas, which include Khartoum, the western region of Darfur and El Gezira state, where the RSF recently advanced.

The agency added in a statement that it was trying to obtain security guarantees to restart operations in El Gezira, previously an aid hub that many had fled to from Khartoum.