Sudan's War Enters Third Year as 11 Million Flee and Famine Spreads

In the sprawling displacement camp outside Port Sudan, Fatima Ahmed cradles her youngest child, born into a war she never imagined would consume her country. Three weeks ago, she fled El Fasher in North Darfur with her four children after Rapid Support Forces fighters overran her neighborhood, killing her husband and two brothers. Now she waits in a city straining under the weight of nearly two million displaced people, unsure if the aid workers rationing dwindling supplies can keep her family alive.

Ahmed's story has become tragically commonplace in Sudan, where the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that erupted in April 2023 has now created the world's largest displacement crisis. As the conflict approaches its third anniversary next month, the United Nations reports that more than 11 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes — roughly one-quarter of the entire population — while famine conditions have spread to five states and threaten millions more.

The humanitarian response remains catastrophically underfunded. The UN's $2.7 billion appeal for Sudan in 2025 received just 32 percent of required funds, and the 2026 appeal launched last month faces even bleaker prospects as global attention remains fixed on other crises. Aid workers describe a situation where they must choose which starving populations to help and which to abandon, while both warring parties continue to obstruct humanitarian access and weaponize food as a tool of war.

El Fasher Under Siege

The battle for El Fasher, capital of North Darfur and the last major city in Darfur not controlled by RSF forces, has become the war's most brutal front. Since RSF forces began their assault on the city last May, they have tightened a siege that has trapped an estimated 1.8 million civilians, including hundreds of thousands who fled there seeking safety from earlier fighting. Witnesses describe daily aerial bombardments by SAF forces and ground attacks by RSF fighters, with both sides showing little regard for civilian areas.

Doctors Without Borders, one of the few international organizations maintaining a presence in the city, reported last week that the South Hospital — one of only two functioning medical facilities for nearly two million people — was struck by artillery fire for the third time in two months. The organization has documented a surge in malnutrition cases, with acute malnutrition rates among children under five exceeding 30 percent in some neighborhoods, well above the emergency threshold.

The ethnic dimension of the violence has grown increasingly apparent. Human Rights Watch and UN investigators have documented systematic targeting of Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa communities by RSF forces and allied Arab militias — patterns that echo the genocide in Darfur two decades ago. Mass graves have been discovered outside El Geneina, Ardamata, and other western towns, while survivors describe killings organized along ethnic lines.

Famine's Expanding Reach

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system — the global standard for assessing hunger crises — declared famine conditions in North Darfur's Zamzam displacement camp last September, the first official famine declaration anywhere in the world since 2017. Since then, IPC assessments have confirmed famine has spread to areas of South Darfur, West Kordofan, Blue Nile, and parts of Khartoum state, with 25.6 million Sudanese — more than half the population — facing acute food insecurity.

The World Food Programme has struggled to deliver aid to the worst-affected areas. Both warring parties have been accused of blocking humanitarian access — the SAF by restricting cross-border operations from Chad, and the RSF by looting aid convoys and demanding taxes on relief supplies. In January, WFP reported that only 15 percent of needed food assistance reached populations in RSF-controlled areas of Darfur, while bureaucratic delays by Sudanese authorities in Port Sudan have left warehouses of aid supplies sitting idle.

The collapse of Sudan's health system has compounded the crisis. The World Health Organization reports that 70 to 80 percent of hospitals in conflict-affected areas are non-functional, while disease outbreaks — including cholera, measles, and dengue fever — have killed thousands. In displacement camps where clean water is scarce and sanitation has broken down, aid workers describe conditions that make epidemic spread inevitable.

Regional Spillover and International Paralysis

The conflict's regional implications continue to grow. More than 2.8 million Sudanese refugees have fled to neighboring countries, straining resources in Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia — nations already grappling with their own humanitarian emergencies. Chad's eastern regions, hosting over 700,000 Sudanese refugees, face acute water and food shortages, while the UN warns that continued displacement threatens to destabilize the entire Sahel region.

International diplomatic efforts have stalled. Peace talks facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States in Jeddah collapsed last October when RSF representatives walked out, and subsequent attempts to restart negotiations have foundered. The UN Security Council remains divided, with Russia and China blocking stronger measures against either party. Meanwhile, both sides continue to receive arms and support from external backers — the UAE and various Gulf states reportedly backing the RSF, while Egypt and Iran have provided support to the SAF.

For Fatima Ahmed and millions like her, the geopolitical maneuvering means little. She knows only that she cannot go home, that her children are hungry, and that the world seems to have forgotten Sudan. The camp outside Port Sudan grows larger each week as new arrivals stream in from the latest front lines, each carrying stories of loss that blend into an overwhelming chorus of suffering.

Unless the international community mobilizes resources and political will to address what the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator has called "one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory," aid officials warn that Sudan's catastrophe will only deepen. With the rainy season approaching and agricultural production devastated by two years of fighting, the window to prevent mass starvation is closing. The question facing the world is whether it will act before Sudan becomes the defining humanitarian failure of this decade.