The UN has called it the worst ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world, thus a disaster at least in the class of the more noticed Gaza, where over 14 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
Around 770,000 children under the age of five are also feared to be suffering from severe, acute malnutrition in the country.
With increasingly alarming food shortages and soaring prices, it is reported that people in al-Fashir are eating animal feed in a situation that is becoming increasingly catastrophic, says the UN spokesperson Farhan Haq, according to Nigeria's state news agency NAN.
Since April 2023, the country has been plagued by fighting between the country's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Earlier in the week, it was reported that several people were killed when they tried to flee the oasis town of al-Fashir. The town has been under siege by the RSF for a year, but the movement has not managed to capture the town, which is still being held by the Sudanese army.
Nearly 100,000 cases of cholera have been reported in the country in the past year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which fears it could get worse in the wake of the civil war and hunger.
