War in Sudan: a humanitarian catastrophe

On 15 April 2023, the alliance between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) collapsed into a violent power struggle, pushing Sudan into civil war. The conflict, initially erupted in Khartoum – the capital city of Sudan – has rapidly spread across the country, leading to mass displacement, ethnic cleansing, and widespread violence, particularly in Darfur. Sudan has a long history of civil war and armed insurgency, so several other armed groups are also involved.

Over 24.8 million people in the country are currently in need of assistance. War has severely impeded access to essential resources such as food, water, shelter, cash, fuel, and basic services, alongside diminishing livelihood opportunities.

Levels of food insecurity in the country are alarming: over half of the population of Sudan faces crisis or worse levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above). That includes more than 8.5 million people facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC 4), and more than 755,000 people who are in catastrophic conditions (IPC 5) in Greater Darfur, South and North Kordofan, Blue Nile, Aj Jazirah, and Khartoum. According to the latest IPC analyses, famine conditions are prevalent in parts of North Darfur. In addition, more than 70% of hospitals in conflict-affected areas aren’t functioning and 19 million children are out of School.

Since the onset of the rainy season in June, heavy rains and flooding have been causing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, besides heightening the risk of diseases, damaging infrastructures and affecting road access, further delaying the delivery of humanitarian assistance to conflict-affected areas with acute needs.

As the conflict in Sudan persists and spreads, humanitarian access has increasingly become more limited. Intense violence and restrictions on the movement of humanitarian workers have hindered aid delivery, particularly in the southern regions of Sudan where needs are most acute. Delivering aid in Sudan remains extremely challenging due to ongoing conflict, persistent insecurity, looting of humanitarian facilities, attacks on humanitarian workers and front-line responders, fuel shortage, disrupted banking system and cash shortage and bureaucratic obstacles.

Besides that, the humanitarian effort is greatly underfunded: as of September 2024, only 41% of the 2024 Sudan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) is funded.

Kassala and River Nile

In Kassala and River Nile states, we are working with the Association for Aid and Relief (AAR) Japan and in partnership with the local organisation JASMAR to ensure access to health and protection for IDPs and host communities.

The states of Kassala and River Nile are located in the east of the country and, due to their proximity to Khartoum and the presence of social networks, are among the main states receiving people fleeing the violence in the capital. River Nile currently hosts more than 790,000 IDPs. Since April, an additional 260,000 people have sought refuge in Kassala State, which was already a transit area for migrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Europe before the conflict and where humanitarian needs were already very high.

In these two states, we are supporting health centres, training health workers, and providing health and hygiene education to the displaced and local populations, as well as facilitating access to health services for pregnant and lactating women and children under five. We also support those at risk of violence or abuse by providing psychological support, distributing cash to access basic services, and conducting awareness-raising and psycho-education sessions.

Darfur

On 24 April, fighting spread to North and West Darfur, and clashes quickly included various communal militias. Darfur is an area that has long faced interethnic violence and has become a hotspot of fighting. Geneina locality has experienced the most severe fighting levels outside of Khartoum.

Violence has caused the full disruption of all basic services, including electricity, water supply, and health care, with almost all health facilities having been closed for the past year and experiencing lack of staff, medical supplies, drugs and vaccines.

Darfur, and West Darfur in particular, is also the region where the current conflict has taken an ethnic and tribal dimension: since the beginning of the conflict ethnically based attacks and serious violations were committed against the Masalit people and other non-Arab communities mainly in Geneina locality and hundreds of civilians were killed.

On the other hand, Central Darfur is hosting almost 460,000 internally displaced persons, on top of the already 422,000 IDPs hosted in the State since the armed conflict 2003-2010, currently making it one of the three top States hosting IDPs.

IDPs and host communities are facing extremely high levels of malnutrition and food insecurity, as well as barriers to healthcare access, inadequate shelter and poor WASH conditions. In Zalingei, in particular, IDPs took refuge in informal settlements such as looted and abandoned public buildings, open-area informal settlements and other camps across the city. The living conditions of these displaced people are horrific: the sites are very crowded, most of them don’t have access to water, latrines are not enough, most of them are without doors and they are also used as showers. In addition, the situation of solid waste is critical. Most IDP households living in these informal settings are headed by women who fled with their children whilst the husbands and men stayed behind to take care of their homes. IDPs in these sites, especially women and girls are exposed to protection risks, especially GBV and violence/harassment by armed men.