Sudan

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned on Friday that Sudanese civilians are in greater danger than ever, as ethnically motivated attacks by warring parties are becoming "increasingly common." The warning comes amid reports of an imminent battle for control of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. The conflict in Sudan has sparked famine, killed tens of thousands of people, and driven millions from their homes.

The United States government this week labelled the actions of Sudan's paramilitary forces as genocide and imposed sanctions on its leader for the "horrific, systematic atrocities" committed by his forces in a war that has gripped Sudan for nearly two years, killing tens of thousands of people and driving more than 12 million from their homes. Yet at the same time, the US administration denies that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are being committed in the Gaza Strip.

Twenty months into the war in Sudan that has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis, the country continues to slide into a widening famine characterized by widespread hunger and a significant surge in acute malnutrition. According to a report released on Tuesday, the IPC Famine Review Committee (FRC) has identified famine in at least five areas, four months after famine was first confirmed in the Zamzam camp for displaced people in Sudan's North Darfur State.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) released its annual Emergency Watchlist on Wednesday, spotlighting the 20 countries most likely to face escalating humanitarian needs in the coming year. According to the dire ranking, the top five crises are Sudan, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Myanmar, Syria and South Sudan, as war and climate change fuel new and ongoing humanitarian emergencies around the world.

While the world's attention is focused on armed conflicts elsewhere, some 15.6 million people have been displaced by conflict in Sudan, making the situation by far the largest displacement crisis in the world. The vast majority of the displaced - more than 12.3 million women, children and men - have been uprooted by the war, which began in April 2023 and continues unabated. Yet the emergency receives almost no media, diplomatic, or political attention, and the humanitarian response is grossly underfunded.

The year is not yet over, but 2024 has already become the deadliest on record for humanitarian workers, with the war in Gaza driving up the numbers, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday, citing data from the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD). The grim milestone was reached with the recorded deaths of 281 aid workers globally, surpassing the previous record of 2023.

The United Nations on Tuesday renewed its appeal for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan, with officials warning that civilians are paying a heavy price for the fighting as outside parties fuel the conflict by supplying weapons. They say the unrelenting violence in Sudan, which has raged for more than 18 months, is poised to intensify, worsening already alarming levels of human rights violations, hunger and displacement.

A new United Nations report warns that people forced to flee war, violence and persecution are increasingly finding themselves on the front lines of the global climate crisis, exposed to a deadly combination of threats but without the funding and support to adapt. The warning comes as three-quarters of the world's more than 123 million forcibly displaced people live in countries heavily exposed to climate change.

A prominent international human rights group is calling for the deployment of a protection force in Sudan following a recent wave of attacks on civilians in Al Jazirah state, widely blamed on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the warring sides in the country's ongoing conflict. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Sunday that the situation has become so grim that a mission is needed to protect the Sudanese population.

Independent United Nations human rights experts on Tuesday condemned the sharp rise in violence against civilians in Sudan, as the humanitarian situation caused by the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues to spiral into catastrophic levels. The condemnation comes at a time of increasing displacement, as nearly a third of Sudan's population of 51 million has now been forced to flee, creating the largest displacement crisis in the world.

A new United Nations report - out this week - warns that the spread of conflict, armed violence, climate hazards and economic stress are driving severe hunger and, in some cases, famine conditions in 22 countries and territories, with no likelihood of improvement in the next six months. Acute food insecurity in these hotspots will increase in scale and severity, pushing millions of people to the brink.

Families in Sudan are eating grass to survive in an escalating hunger crisis, with famine-level malnutrition spreading across half of Sudan's 18 states, the international humanitarian organization Save the Children warned on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the United Nations reports that fighting continues to rage in North Darfur, West Darfur, Khartoum, North Kordofan and Al Jazira states, despite repeated calls for the warring parties to cease fighting, ensure the protection of civilians and facilitate humanitarian access.

While the world's farmers produce more than enough food to feed the planet's 8 billion people, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said "hunger and malnutrition are a fact of life" for billions, as 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.  In a message ahead of Wednesday's World Food Day, Guterres said 733 million people worldwide lack food because of "conflict, marginalization, climate change, poverty and economic downturns.

The head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, warned Monday that displacement crises in Lebanon and Sudan could worsen, but said tighter border measures, outsourcing and externalization are not the answer, calling them ineffective and often in violation of international legal obligations. Grandi said an unprecedented 123 million people are now displaced around the world amid other persisting conflicts.

Hunger levels in many of the world's poorest countries will remain high for another 136 years if the lack of progress in feeding the world continues, according to a new report released Thursday. While global progress in reducing hunger has stagnated, the 2024 Global Hunger Index (GHI) reveals that hunger is at severe or alarming levels in 42 countries.

Warring parties in Sudan are using sexual violence as a weapon of war, and gender-based violence has more than doubled since the conflict erupted in April 2023, UN Women, a United Nations agency focused on women's rights and social progress, said in its new report. The emergency in Sudan is one of the worst protection crises in recent history, with alarming levels of sexual and gender-based violence continuing to terrorize civilians, especially women and girls.

At a ministerial meeting on Wednesday, the United Nations and Member States issued an urgent call for stepped-up action to end the war in Sudan and accelerate the humanitarian response in the region. 17 months of brutal conflict in Sudan have fueled the world's worst hunger crisis and one of the world's largest displacement crises, with more than 10 million people forced to flee their homes.

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously renewed for another year an arms embargo on conflict parties in Sudan's Darfur region, where war between rival generals has intensified in recent months, exacerbating the world's largest humanitarian crisis. But human rights groups and UN experts say Wednesday's renewal of the embargo does not go far enough and should include all of Sudan.

The warring parties in Sudan have committed an appalling range of harrowing human rights violations and international crimes, including many that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, United Nations-appointed experts said on Friday. They called for the immediate deployment of an "independent and impartial force" with a mandate to protect civilians.

Numerous countries around the world have been hit by torrential rains, flash floods, river flooding, and other large-scale flooding events that have submerged vast areas of land, caused devastation, affected millions of people, displaced hundreds of thousands, and claimed hundreds of lives. Although the rainy season is still underway in many regions of the Northern Hemisphere, the magnitude of the ongoing natural disasters points to the effects of the climate crisis and the La Niña phenomenon.

Cease-fire talks in Sudan brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia have failed to end the country's 16-month conflict, but have succeeded in securing greater humanitarian access to millions of people who have been deprived of food, medicine, and other essential aid for many months. However, the absence of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) from the talks has hampered progress towards a ceasefire.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is warning that thousands of civilians remain trapped in heavy fighting in the Sudanese town of El Fasher, where the Saudi Hospital, the only remaining hospital, has come under repeated attack and hospital staff are running out of medical supplies. In a statement Thursday, the ICRC said "to this day" it has been unable to get humanitarian aid into the town.

Ceasefire talks seeking to end Sudan's 16-month civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in Geneva on Wednesday, but neither warring side entered the negotiating room. The talks, which also aim to address the world's largest humanitarian crisis, took place without the presence of the rival military factions.

The confirmation of famine in parts of Sudan's Darfur region must serve as a wake-up call for the international community, a senior United Nations official said on Tuesday. Stopping the famine in Sudan requires political will and leadership, he told the UN Security Council, as speakers urged the warring parties to heed the international community's repeated calls to stop the fighting and avoid further deterioration of an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

A United Nations-backed food security report concluded Thursday that more than a year of war in Sudan has pushed parts of North Darfur into famine, including a displaced persons camp that houses more than half a million people. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is urgently calling on all warring parties to allow humanitarian food assistance by freeing up key access points within the country and at its borders.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, has strongly condemned indiscriminate attacks in the town of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State. Local authorities reported that at least 97 civilians were killed or injured when a hospital, a cattle market and residential areas came under attack on Saturday.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it is extremely concerned by the escalation of fighting in Sudan's southwestern Sennar State, which has severely hampered humanitarian aid deliveries in large parts of the country. Meanwhile, the last open border crossing into Darfur from neighboring Chad is inaccessible due to heavy rains and flooding.

United Nations officials say talks between Sudan's warring parties continued in Geneva on Friday, focusing on regional peace efforts as well as an immediate cessation of hostilities and a resolution of the more than 14-month conflict through dialogue. The development comes as fighting rages in many parts of the country, which has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with some 25 million people - half of Sudan's population - in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is expanding its humanitarian appeal for Sudan as more and more people flee the country's war and widespread hunger in search of safety in neighboring countries. UNHCR reports that more money is urgently needed to help and protect the swelling population of Sudanese refugees, and is revising its appeal to US$1.5 billion, up from the US$1.4 billion it requested in January.

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.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that halfway through 2024, only 18 percent - or US$8.8 billion - of the US$48.7 billion needed to help people in need around the world this year has been received. This is far less than at the same time last year, when there was already a massive shortfall. At the same time, more than 300 million people around the world are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Independent investigators appointed by the United Nations have accused Sudan's warring parties of driving the country into a humanitarian abyss by flagrantly disregarding basic human rights and international humanitarian law. The three-member International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan presented its first oral update to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday.

United Nations human rights chief Voker Türk has expressed dismay at the extent to which warring parties in many settings have overstepped the bounds of what is acceptable and legal, "trampling human rights at their core." Moreover, data collected by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) shows that the number of civilian deaths in armed conflicts skyrocketed by 72 percent in 2023 compared to 2022.

In 2023, children living in situations of war and conflict experienced intolerable levels of violence, according to a new United Nations Secretary-General's report on children and armed conflict released this week. Children were recruited and used, including on the front lines, attacked in their homes, abducted on their way to school, their schools used for military purposes, their doctors targeted, and the horrific list goes on.

Amid the alarming humanitarian situation in Sudan, the UN Security Council on Thursday demanded that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) end their siege of the North Darfur capital, El Fasher, as they move to take the last remaining town in the Western Darfur region from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Meanwhile, the humanitarian emergency remains severely underfunded, despite the United States pledging US$315 million in additional funding to Sudan on Friday.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports that forced displacement around the world has reached historic highs, driven by conflict, persecution, human rights abuses, the climate crisis and other events disturbing public order. In a report released on Thursday, UNHCR said the number of forcibly displaced people continued to rise this year and now stands at 120 million.

Acute food insecurity is set to increase in scale and severity in 18 hunger hotspots, a new United Nations early warning report said on Wednesday. The report highlights the urgent need for humanitarian assistance to prevent famine in Gaza and Sudan, and further deterioration of the devastating hunger crises in Haiti, Mali and South Sudan. It also warns of the lingering effects of El Niño and the looming threat of La Niña, bringing more climate extremes that could disrupt livelihoods.

Time is running out for millions of people in Sudan who are "at imminent risk of famine" because the country's warring parties are preventing aid from reaching them, major aid agencies warn. Nineteen global humanitarian organizations, including twelve United Nations agencies, urged Sudan's warring parties on Friday to stop blocking food aid from reaching millions of people suffering from acute hunger.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has urged partners to provide immediate assistance to nearly 185,000 Sudanese who have crossed the border into Chad and continue to await relocation from dangerous border areas, particularly the border town of Adre. The call comes as more than 9.2 million people have fled the war in Sudan, with at least 7.2 million internally displaced and some 2 million seeking refuge across the border

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday that the window to save lives is closing as famine looms in Sudan's war-torn regions, with civilians trapped by intensified fighting in northern Darfur. The threat of famine is growing, especially for 5 million Sudanese already on the brink of starvation. In all, nearly 18 million people are facing acute hunger, while half the population - some 25 million people - are in need of humanitarian assistance. 

Conflict and violence have pushed the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) around the world to a record high of 75.9 million, with nearly half living in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The report, released on Tuesday, found that conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) accounted for nearly two-thirds of new displacements due to violence.

More than a year after the start of the war in Sudan, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said Friday it remains extremely concerned about shocking levels of violence and devastating risks as many areas across the country remain beyond the reach of aid organizations. Among these areas is Sudan's North Darfur state, where intensifying clashes between the warring parties are preventing aid deliveries to the wider Darfur region.