KHARTOUM, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's poverty rate has surged from 21 percent to 71 percent due to the ongoing conflict, leaving 23 million citizens below the poverty line, the official SUNA news agency reported Saturday.
The Sudanese government is implementing productive projects and creating jobs to combat poverty, SUNA quoted Minister of Human Resources and Social Welfare Mutasim Ahmed Saleh as saying.
He stressed directing corporate social responsibility funds toward development projects and expanding microfinance programs for those who lost income sources.
The ministry is coordinating with the Central Bank of Sudan to ease financing conditions and increase lending limits for small-scale projects to support families and revive the economy, he added.
According to a Nov. 3 report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a multi-stakeholder global initiative aimed at enhancing food security and nutrition analysis to inform decisions, 21.2 million people, or 45 percent of Sudan's population, faced high levels of acute food insecurity in September, with famine conditions reported in El Fasher and Kadugli.
However, the Sudanese government denied any food gap, calling previous famine reports "exaggerated."
Sudan remains engulfed in a devastating conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which erupted in April 2023. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, plunging the country deeper into a humanitarian crisis.
