Conflict and drought are increasing the risk of famine across Sudan's Darfur and Kordofan regions, the global food security monitor known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned on Monday. The IPC described a "deteriorating humanitarian situation" in greater Darfur and Kordofan, including areas already identified as at risk of famine.

An El Niño-linked drought, which the monitor says affects roughly half or more of the country, is compounding the effects of war and displacement. It has caused localized crop failures, reduced food availability, pushed up prices and deprived households of income. Poor vegetation growth has hit about 64% of cropland in North Darfur and around half in South Darfur, West Kordofan and South Kordofan. In North Darfur, delayed rains and "critically low" food stocks have worsened the situation, while West Kordofan is enduring one of its worst droughts since 2004, judging by rainfall levels.

Malnutrition is also worsening. In Nyala, the main city of South Darfur, the share of children admitted to nutrition services with severe acute malnutrition roughly doubled from about 5% to 11% between January and August. Two displacement camps in South Darfur recorded global acute malnutrition above famine thresholds. The IPC said healthcare is extremely limited or entirely inaccessible, and clean water is increasingly scarce, leaving a poorly nourished population highly vulnerable to disease and death. Without a quick and significant increase in assistance, it warned, food insecurity, acute malnutrition and excess mortality will likely intensify.

The drought strikes a country already devastated by war. Fighting erupted in April 2023 when tensions between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated into open conflict in Khartoum and then spread nationwide. The conflict monitor ACLED counts at least 150,000 deaths, though aid groups believe the real figure is higher, and about 13 million people have been displaced. The army holds much of central and eastern Sudan, while the RSF controls the Darfur region in the west, an arid area about the size of Spain, and parts of the south. In May, nearly 19.5 million people, over 40% of the population, faced high levels of acute food insecurity, including 135,000 in Phase 5, the IPC's most severe category, marked by starvation and deaths from hunger or disease.

The IPC is a partnership of 21 organisations and institutions, including UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, which gives its findings weight in humanitarian planning. Aid groups have repeatedly said that ending the fighting and securing safe, sustained access are essential, but peace efforts have so far failed.

Violence continues. Local rights group Emergency Lawyers said an airstrike killed at least 72 civilian miners in the border area with Egypt, alleging without evidence that Egyptian warplanes were responsible. Egypt's armed forces announced a campaign against illegal mining in the Eastern Desert but gave no further explanation.