Geneva, May 17 (IANS/DPA): The civil war in Sudan is on the brink of spiralling out of control, the United Nations warned on Friday, a year after the start of major fighting in the East African country.

At least 16,000 people died so far, with 33,000 injured and around nine million displaced, and a famine is now looming, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

More than a third of the people in the Sudanese capital Khartoum and in the Darfur region are already suffering from acute food deprivation, the agency said.

The number of children under the age of five and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers suffering from acute malnutrition has risen from 3.9 million at the beginning of 2023 to 4.9 million in 2024.

A bloody power struggle is raging between the forces of Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, an army general who is Sudan's de facto leader, and his former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, spoke to the two men separately on the phone for the first time since 2022, his office reported on Friday.

He called on them to enter into peace negotiations, not to obstruct humanitarian aid in the country and to prevent atrocities committed by their fighters.

Both had agreed that international humanitarian law must be respected, Türk's spokeswoman said. She did not give any details about further reactions from either side.

Concrete proposals for new peace negotiations or a meeting between the two men were not discussed, according to the spokeswoman.

During the calls, Türk expressed his extreme concern at the recent escalation of fighting between the sides in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur.

There, 1.8 million inhabitants and displaced persons are caught between the fronts and have hardly any food left, he said.