Alarming new food security projections for Sudan released on Thursday show that the country is facing a devastating hunger catastrophe on a scale not seen since the Darfur crisis in the early 2000s, the heads of three United Nations agencies have warned. New data shows that more than 750,000 people are experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, with 25.6 million people at crisis levels of hunger and the threat of famine in several regions.
For more than a year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) have been warning of a rapid deterioration in conditions for the people of Sudan, especially children, as food security is torn apart by the war that has ravaged the country.
Sudan has witnessed shocking levels of violence since fighting broke out on April 15, 2023, sparked by a power struggle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support For (RSF), also known as "Hemedti," plunging the country into the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
Together, UN agencies have mobilized a massive humanitarian response inside Sudan and in neighboring countries, where more than 2.1 million refugees have sought safety.
“WFP’s team in Sudan is working day and night in perilous conditions to deliver lifesaving assistance, yet these numbers confirm that time is fast running out to prevent famine. For each person we have reached this year, another eight desperately need help,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain in a statement Thursday.
“We urgently need a massive expansion of humanitarian access and funding so we can scale-up our relief operations, and halt Sudan’s slide into a humanitarian catastrophe that is threatening to destabilize the wider region.”
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, a total of 25.6 million people are experiencing high levels of acute hunger (IPC Phase 3 or worse). This means that for half of Sudan's war-affected population, each day is a struggle to feed themselves and their families.
The rapid deterioration of food security in Sudan has left 755,000 people in catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5) with a risk of famine in 14 areas, including Darfur, Kordofan, Al Jazirah and some hotspots in Khartoum. 8.5 million people are projected to be in emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4).
The worst conditions are in the areas most impacted by the fighting and where people displaced by the conflict have concentrated.
The IPC is a collaborative initiative involving more than 20 partners, including governments, UN agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The initiative uses global, scientific standards to assess levels of food insecurity. The IPC Acute Food Insecurity Scale consists of five classifications: (1) minimal/none, (2) stressed, (3) crisis, (4) emergency, and (5) catastrophe/famine.
This is the first time since the inception of the IPC in 2004 that catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5) have been confirmed in Sudan. Unlike the Darfur crisis of twenty years ago, the current crisis spans the entire country, with catastrophic levels of hunger even reaching the capital, Khartoum, and the state of Al Jazirah, once the breadbasket of Sudan.
Sudan is facing the worst levels of acute food insecurity ever recorded by the IPC in the country. The new data also shows a sharp deterioration for Sudan's population from the last projection, released in December 2023, which showed 17.7 million people facing acute hunger (IPC Phase 3 or worse), including nearly 5 million people in emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4).
“The new IPC analysis revealed a deepening and rapid deterioration of the food security situation in Sudan, with millions of people’s lives at risk,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.
"We are now delivering life-saving seeds for the main planting season. The clock is ticking for Sudan’s farmers."
The UN agencies say an immediate ceasefire and renewed international efforts - both diplomatic and financial - as well as unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access are urgently needed to allow the humanitarian response to scale up further and for agencies to deliver at the speed required.
"The latest snapshot illustrates the devastating impact the conflict in Sudan is having on the country's children. Hunger and malnutrition are spreading at alarming rates, and without concerted international action and funding, there is a very real danger the situation will spiral out of all control," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
"There is no time to lose. Any delay in unfettered access to vulnerable populations will be measured in the loss of children's lives."
FAO, UNICEF and WFP are leading a multi-sectoral famine prevention effort to reach people across Sudan.
WFP says it has delivered assistance to more than 3 million displaced and vulnerable people in Sudan so far this year, and is scaling up to reach an additional 5 million people by the end of the year. The UN agency is working urgently to expand access and open new humanitarian corridors - from neighboring countries and across front lines.
Having reached 3.8 million people in the first half of the year through winter seed distributions and vaccinations, FAO says it is now preparing to support more than 1.8 million farming and pastoral households in Sudan, equivalent to 9 million people, to resume livelihood activities and produce food locally.
UNICEF says it has provided nutritional screening to nearly 5.5 million children and life-saving treatment to more than 322,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition since the conflict began in April.
The UN Children's Fund is scaling up its response with humanitarian partners to prevent more child deaths, having already reached more than 5 million people with access to safe water and vaccinated more than half a million children against measles in the first five months of this year.
The scale of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Sudan is unprecedented. The country is experiencing a humanitarian emergency of epic proportions, with half the population in need of life-saving assistance, tens of thousands killed and injured, and millions uprooted from their homes. Most of the population has no access to health care.
The war between the SAF and the RSF is being conducted with new levels of violence and brutality against civilians, especially in the states of Darfur. The RSF has been accused of mass killings and rape as a means of warfare. However, both parties to the conflict have been accused of serious war crimes.
Thousands are being ethnically targeted, killed, injured, abused and exploited, forcing more and more people to flee the violence. Gender-based violence (GBV), including sexual violence, is being used as a tool of war and is no longer concentrated in Khartoum or Darfur, but has spread to other parts of the country.
Aid agencies say the war is having catastrophic consequences for a population of nearly 49 million people - with more than 24.8 million in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. Among those in need are more than 14 million children.
Over the course of fourteen months, more than 9.7 million people have been displaced as a result of the ongoing conflict. While more than 7.5 million people - Sudanese and refugees already living in the country - have been displaced within Sudan, more than 2.1 million women, men and children have sought refuge in other countries.
Most Sudanese have sought refuge in the seven countries that border the northeastern African nation. South Sudan has received the largest number of people from Sudan - more than 700,000 - many of them South Sudanese returning after many years. Chad has seen the largest influx of refugees in its history, with more than 600,000 people crossing the border.
As of June 2024, more than 10.3 million women, men, and children have been internally displaced by conflict in the country, making Sudan the largest internal displacement crisis in the world. The total number of Sudanese refugees is estimated at more than 2.8 million, including those forced to flee before April 2023.
In total, some 13 million people have now been displaced by conflict in Sudan, making it one of the two largest displacement crises in the world, alongside the conflict in Syria.
The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Sudan hardly receives the international political and media attention it deserves, and funding to meet needs throughout Sudan and in neighboring countries is woefully inadequate.
As of June 28, only 17 percent of the US$2.6 billion needed under the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) to provide life-saving assistance to more than 18 million people inside Sudan has been received.
Further information
Full text: Sudan: Acute Food Insecurity Snapshot, April 2024 - February 2025, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), report, published June 27, 2024
https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Sudan_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Snapshot_Jun2024_Feb2025.pdf
Full text: Sudan is facing an unprecedented hunger catastrophe, say UN Agency Chiefs, WFP, press release, published June 27, 2024
https://www.wfp.org/news/sudan-facing-unprecedented-hunger-catastrophe-say-un-agency-chiefs