New data from UNICEF’s latest SMART* survey in Um Baru locality, in Sudan’s North Darfur, reveals that more than half of children assessed were acutely malnourished, with one in six suffering from severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition that can kill a child in weeks if left untreated.

The nutrition survey, conducted between 19 and 23 December and screening almost 500 children, found a Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate of 53 per cent, with 18 per cent of children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and 35 per cent from Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM), among the highest malnutrition rates recorded in a standarised nutrition survey anywhere in the world, and more than three times the World Health Organisation (WHO) emergency threshold of fifteen per cent.