Large areas of Darfur and South Kordofan are nearing catastrophic levels of hunger as families continue to flee in search of food and water, the risk of malnutrition among children grows, drought threatens the agricultural season and funding for relief operations declines sharply.
Various humanitarian estimates indicate that between 19.5 million and about 20 million people in Sudan face acute food insecurity. The impact of the crisis is clear in the long-established displacement camps in Darfur, where Halima lives with her five children on one meal of porridge when it is available.
Asida is a traditional food made by cooking maize flour with water until it becomes a thick dough. It is usually served with sauce, but displaced families are forced to eat it alone, and may go for days without finding any. Halima describes her daily life: “This is our only meal. We eat it at midday and sleep hungry until morning. Sometimes we find nothing, so we drink water and sleep.”
We no longer ask what we will eat, but whether we will eat today at all?
He says leaving his village was not only about seeking safety, but came after residents lost the ability to obtain food and water. He adds: “We could no longer find anything to eat or drink, so we decided to flee in search of food.”
Hunger and displacement figures in Sudan
In more recent estimates announced by the World Food Programme on 14 September 2026, the programme’s acting executive director, Carl Skau, warned that about 20 million people in Sudan face acute hunger, while the number of people displaced by the conflict had reached about 14 million. He said nearly 200,000 people were experiencing catastrophic levels amounting to famine, alongside 5 million people at the emergency level.
According to Abdel-Baqi Mohammed Hamid, minister of social welfare and humanitarian affairs coordinator for the Darfur regional government, the greatest humanitarian needs are concentrated in Al-Malha locality, followed by Kornoi and then Mabrou. The map of areas in need also includes Tina, Hashaba, Al-Dour, Urshi, Umm Marahil and Abu Disa, which host large displaced populations.
Hamid says levels of need in Darfur remain extremely high and that affected areas require urgent humanitarian intervention to provide food, medicine and clean drinking water. He warns of the consequences of allowing conditions to remain unchanged, saying: “The continuation of the current situation means a real humanitarian catastrophe.” The crisis is placing children under five at direct risk.
Malnutrition threatens children
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated, in data released on 17 May 2026, that 825,000 children under five were at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition during the year, an increase of 25% over pre-conflict levels. Nearly 100,000 children were also admitted to treatment programmes for acute malnutrition between January and March 2026 alone.
The director of the Bridges for Peace and Development organisation in Al-Malha locality, North Darfur, says dozens of children have suffered from malnutrition as living conditions deteriorate, describing the situation as “very dangerous”. He explains that families have nothing with which to feed their children and that the area needs urgent intervention to save the lives of affected children.
The official warns that the continuation of the crisis threatens a humanitarian catastrophe, particularly as health centres lack medicines and the therapeutic food used to treat cases of malnutrition. This shortage combines families’ limited ability to provide food with health institutions’ inability to deliver the necessary treatment to the worst-affected children. Tawila camp continues to receive families arriving from other areas because of hunger and thirst.
Adam Rijal, spokesman for the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees, says 138 new families arrived at the camp on 15 September 2026, bringing the total number of recently displaced families to 354, comprising 2,127 people, most of them women and children. Rijal said the families came from east of El Fasher and Kordofan and lacked the basic necessities for a dignified life.
Families stream into Tawila camp
The families face food insecurity, shortages of clean water and medicines, and a lack of adequate shelter, while the spokesman says the assistance reaching displaced people covers no more than one-tenth of their needs. The expansion of hunger coincides with damage to agricultural activity in Darfur.
The regional government’s agriculture minister, Al-Sadiq Khamis Brango, warns that “famine is more dangerous than war”, accusing the Rapid Support Forces of destroying the foundations of agricultural production, looting seeds and equipment, and releasing livestock onto the remaining crops.
Brango said: “The Rapid Support Forces did not only burn villages; they burned the future of agriculture in Darfur. They looted seeds and agricultural equipment and released livestock onto what remained of the crops to strip and destroy them. They deprived millions of Sudanese of their agricultural seasons, and fertile land became empty fields that produce nothing.” The effects of the conflict have been compounded by declining rainfall and drought.
After a field visit to Sudan, Carl Skau said during a press conference on 14 September 2026 that “Darfur has not experienced this drought since 1984, and we are now in the rainy season”. He warned of widespread concerns that agriculture, its output and the livestock sector could suffer severe long-term damage.
Drought harms the agricultural season
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation published on 3 September 2026 showed that the rainy season recorded below-average cumulative rainfall across most agricultural areas. The deficit reached 20% in Sennar State and 30% in Gedaref State, negatively affecting crop germination and growth and increasing risks to food production. Alongside declining agricultural output, relief operations face a severe shortage of resources.
The World Food Programme said its available funding had fallen by about half, after receiving 645 million dollars during the previous year compared with only 206 million dollars from the beginning of the current year until the statement was issued in September. Skau said “the shortfall needed to sustain current operations is approaching 300 million dollars”, warning that the programme could be forced to reduce assistance within weeks if urgent funding was not secured.
This threatens to reduce support at a time when the number of people in need and displaced people is increasing and levels of acute hunger are rising. On 11 September 2026, the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees issued an urgent appeal to humanitarian organisations to provide emergency food rations sufficient to alleviate daily hunger.
It also called for hospitals and health centres to be supplied with essential medicines, clean and safe drinking-water sources to be secured, and tents and temporary accommodation to be provided for newly arriving families. The appeal also included launching urgent psychosocial support programmes for affected children and women.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Food Programme had not responded to requests for comment on the deteriorating hunger conditions in Sudan by the time the report was published, while families continue to arrive at Tawila camp and warnings grow that aid will be reduced because of the funding gap.
