UN rights chief warns of 'mass deaths from famine' in Sudan

FILE PHOTO: Orphans and children separated from their parents in Kadugli gather to eat boiled leaves for food at an IDP Camp within Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) controlled area in Boram County, Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan, Sudan June 22, 2024. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief warned of the risk of a further escalation of the war in Sudan on Thursday and said that there was a growing risk of deaths from starvation on a wide scale.

"Sudan is a powder keg, on the verge of a further explosion into chaos, and at increasing risk of atrocity crimes and mass deaths from famine," Volker Turk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva. "The danger of escalation has never been higher."

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Madeline Chambers)