US announces $424 million in new aid for displaced Sudanese at UN meeting

New York: The United States on Wednesday announced $424 million in new aid for displaced and hungry Sudanese as it urged others to ramp up efforts on...

New York: The United States on Wednesday announced $424 million in new aid for displaced and hungry Sudanese as it urged others to ramp up efforts on one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

The assistance includes $175 million with which the United States will buy some 81,000 metric tons of surplus food from its own farmers to feed people in and around Sudan, where a UN-backed assessment has warned of wide-scale famine, US officials said.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told a UN event that the world must scale up its efforts "massively" as she regretted that many were ignoring "a catastrophe of truly unfathomable proportions."

"As we sit here today, more than 25 million Sudanese face acute hunger. Many are in famine, some reduced to eating leaves and dirt to stave off hunger pangs -- but not starvation," she said.

"This humanitarian catastrophe is a man-made one -- brought on by a senseless war that has wrought unspeakable violence and by heartless blockades of food, water and medicine for those made victims of it," she said.