Sudan is facing what the World Food Programme has called “the humanitarian crisis of our time,” as tens of millions struggle through sieges, blockades and aid shortages that have pushed entire cities into famine.
What began as a power struggle between rival generals more than two years ago has since plunged Sudan into a brutal civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and displaced millions from their homes, with mass killings leaving bloody sand visible from space and ruined infrastructure.
Sudan “is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world today,” Leni Kinzli, the WFP’s Sudan communications officer, told NBC News on Sunday. “It can no longer be forgotten or ignored, simply because the severity and the scale is one that has really not been seen at this level.”
At least 21.2 million people — roughly 45% of Sudan’s population — are now facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the internationally recognized system for assessing famine and food insecurity. Famine conditions have been confirmed in Darfur’s el-Fasher and Kadugli, where “people have endured months without reliable access to food or medical care,” the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization has said.
Kinzli described a landscape where even relatively calm areas remain fragile, while other regions edge deeper into hunger. She said WFP can reach 4 million to 5 million people with food and nutrition support each month and has the capacity to assist 8 million, but “the resources we have available are not keeping pace with the need.”
Aid delivery remains extremely difficult in violence-ridden areas, where conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues to shape the crisis.
That includes el-Fasher, which was under siege by the RSF for more than 18 months, during which time “absolutely no” aid supplies were able to get in, added Kinzli. The RSF eventually overran the Sudanese army’s last major stronghold in Darfur in October.
In South Kordofan, a drone attack by Sudanese paramilitary forces hit a kindergarten on Thursday, killing 50 people, including 33 children, according to a local doctors’ group.
United Nations aid teams in Sudan issued a joint statement on Thursday warning that the violence “is restricting access to food, medicine and essential supplies, and is limiting farmers’ access to their fields and markets, heightening the risk of famine spreading across the Kordofan states.”
U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk warned: “We must not allow Kordofan to become another el-Fasher. It is truly shocking to see history repeating itself in Kordofan so soon after the horrific events in el-Fasher.”
And on the ground, conditions are already bleak.
“We are seeing pretty much the same exact things in the state of South Kordofan,” said Dr. Mohamed Elsheikh, a spokesperson for Sudan Doctors Network. The RSF is “doing the same siege, the same blockade, they are not allowing food or medicine to get into the cities,” he told NBC News, adding that between Sept. 20 and Oct. 20 of this year, 23 children died from severe malnutrition.
For the past three months, Sudanese civilians have endured RSF attacks, Elsheikh said, including widespread atrocities and human rights violations, with civilians executed arbitrarily and key infrastructure — such as hospitals, clinics, schools and homes — deliberately targeted by airstrikes.
The Sudan Doctors Network has documented 19 cases of rape committed by RSF forces against women who fled the fighting in el-Fasher and arrived at the al-Afad camp in al-Dabbah, said Elsheikh.
Fighting in Sudan began in April 2023, when the Sudanese military, led by the country’s top commander and de facto ruler, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, clashed with his former deputy, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — a former camel dealer widely known as Hemedti, who leads the RSF.
Both men had previously led counterinsurgency operations against uprisings in the region, a conflict that in 2005 contributed to Omar al-Bashir becoming the first sitting head of state indicted by the International Criminal Court on suspicion of genocide.
Burhan and Dagalo were part of the military establishment that ousted al-Bashir in 2019 after widespread popular unrest. Two years later, they agreed to share power following a coup that brought down the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
However, their alliance broke down spectacularly over how to manage the transition to a civilian government. With neither willing to cede power, full-scale fighting erupted, dragging Sudan deeper into conflict and a humanitarian crisis.
With no resolution in sight, the war is only becoming more entrenched and chaotic, Hager Ali, a research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, told NBC News. What began as a two-sided struggle has splintered into a tangle of local battles, reopening old regional grievances and eroding whatever central authority once existed, she said.
Both sides have shifted “from trying to win this war to trying not to lose,” she added, noting that as the fighting regionalizes, it has produced “smaller fronts, smaller conflicts, which has complicated the chain of command,” making even a negotiated ceasefire nearly impossible to enforce.
Nearly 13 million people have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety, according to the U.N. Human Rights Council, and have been displaced within the country or are living in neighboring countries such as Chad, South Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia.
Funding for the regional response is less than 10% of what is needed, it said, making it impossible to cover basic needs.
But where funding is available, and where fighting has abated, some areas have shown signs of recovery.
Last year, there were 10 areas confirmed to be suffering from famine, said Kinzli, but “now there are only two.” Around 3.4 million people who were previously at “crisis” levels are no longer classified as such, reflecting limited stabilization in parts of Khartoum, Al Jazirah and Sennar, where some families have begun to return.
While these gains remain narrow and uneven, and the situation remains dire, “this shows that when we have access and funding, we can reverse famine and improve the situation,” Kinzli added. “The humanitarian response can really make a difference if and when we are able to deliver.”