By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States will give an extra $203 million to help millions of civilians affected by the war in Sudan, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Thursday, calling on other nations to step up their aid.

“This is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” she told reporters.

The funds aim to help civilians in Sudan and those who have fled to neighboring countries since war erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The U.N. says nearly 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population – need aid, famine is looming and 10 million people have fled their homes. More than 2.2 million of those people have left for other countries.

“The scale of this crisis is overwhelming. But now it’s not a moment to throw up our hands. We must continue to fight for the people of Sudan,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “People are eating dirt to survive relying on tree leaves for nutrition.”

There is now a realistic chance of famine in 14 areas across Sudan if the war escalates, a global monitor said last month. The U.N. World Food Programme has called the sharply worsening hunger crisis the worst in the world.

The additional U.S. money takes the total American funding for Sudanese civilians in Sudan, Chad, Egypt and South Sudan to $1.6 billion since the conflict began, a U.S. official said. The U.S. is the largest single donor to the aid response.

“We hope this new round of aid serves as a call to action for others,” said Thomas-Greenfield, who visited Adre on Chad’s border with Sudan in September to meet refugees from the war.

The war, triggered by a plan to integrate the army and paramilitary forces in a transition to free elections, has produced waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF. The RSF denies harming civilians and attributes the activity to rogue actors.

The United States says the warring parties have committed war crimes and the RSF and allied militias have also committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. A Reuters report last month included analysis of satellite imagery that showed cemeteries expanding fast as starvation and disease spread.

Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. was prepared to push for more U.N. Security Council action to “ensure aid is able to reach those most in need if necessary.”

“The Security Council should consider all tools at its disposal, including authorizing aid to move from critical crossings – like at the Adre border into Sudan – as we have once done with cross border aid into Syria,” she said.

Between 2014 and 2023 the council authorized aid deliveries from neighboring countries to millions of people largely in opposition-held areas of Syria. Authorization was needed because Syrian authorities did not agree to the operation.