By Staff, Agencies The United Nations on Friday warned that violence spreading in Sudan could consume the entire region.

The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said in a statement that a lasting conflict could lead to a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

“This viral conflict and the hunger, disease and displacement left in its wake now threatens to consume the entire country,” he said, stressing concerns about the safety of civilians in the country’s breadbasket Gezira State.

Griffiths further cautioned that “Hundreds of thousands of children are severely malnourished and at imminent risk of death if left untreated.” Sudan has been torn by fighting between two rival generals since mid-April.

The conflict that killed nearly 5,000 people and devastated infrastructure in already impoverished Sudan, has been concentrated mostly in the capital city of Khartoum and the Darfur region.

According to United Nations estimates, in the four months since the fighting broke out, more than 4.6 million people have been forced to flee their homes