Three years after fighting erupted between Sudan's military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the United Nations estimates that 70 percent of Sudan's population now lives in poverty — a figure that encapsulates what international organisations describe as the world's largest and most underfunded humanitarian crisis. What began in April 2023 as a power struggle between two rival armed factions has systematically dismantled the country's economy, food systems, and civilian infrastructure.

Nearly 29 million Sudanese — more than 61 percent of the population — are experiencing acute food insecurity, a figure that has risen by five million in just eighteen months, according to a joint report by Action Against Hunger, CARE International, the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, and the Norwegian Refugee Council. Ten million people are suffering severe or extreme hunger. In the most heavily contested areas, including North Darfur and South Kordofan, millions of families are surviving on one meal a day or less — sometimes resorting to peanut shells, leaves, or animal feed. "We no longer ask what we are going to eat. We ask who is going to eat," one North Darfur resident told the report's authors. Aid workers describe food being weaponised deliberately, with farmland burned or looted, and traders forced to navigate a maze of checkpoints, roadblocks, and informal tolls just to move supplies to market.

The crisis is also one of movement. Sudan is now home to the world's largest displacement crisis, with 33 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and more than 4.5 million having fled to neighbouring countries, placing acute pressure on already fragile states across the region. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warns of a "crisis in motion": even as some displaced families attempt to return home, they find communities stripped of water, healthcare, and schools. "Many families, mostly women alone with their children, have fled multiple times," said Thierry Balloy, IFRC Head of Delegation in Sudan. "Today, we see people returning to areas where basic services no longer exist."

Women and girls face particular danger. Aid workers report that hunger drives people to take life-threatening risks — venturing into fields or to markets despite the threat of attack. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) recorded approximately 3,400 victims of sexual violence between January 2024 and November 2025, a figure considered a fraction of actual cases, with most victims coming from non-Arab communities. The RSF's seizure of Al-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur not under its control, in late October was accompanied by killings, rape, and looting on a mass scale.

Despite the scale of suffering, funding for the humanitarian response is falling — not rising. Aid organisations stress that Sudan's fertile land means famine is not inevitable but is a direct consequence of the war. "Stop the violence," said Jojanneke Spoor of CARE Netherlands. "After that, Sudan's land can be restored to produce food again." The IFRC and its partners are calling on the international community for flexible, sustained funding as needs shift daily — warning that without renewed global attention, millions more will slide deeper into crisis both inside Sudan and across a destabilised region.