Sudan is witnessing one of the world’s gravest humanitarian catastrophes, as United Nations data reveal that the war, ongoing since April 2023, has pushed some 21.2 million people to the brink of severe hunger, with confirmed famine already gripping at least two regions.
And despite an expansion of World Food Programme access in several areas where fighting has momentarily subsided, millions of civilians continue to endure life-threatening conditions of staggering deprivation.
In North Darfur State, vast numbers of survivors from the city of El-Fasher are struggling to stay alive one month after the Rapid Support Forces seized the city, unleashing widespread abuses against civilians, including mass killings, torture, and ransom-based kidnappings along the routes used by those fleeing.
Survivor testimonies confirm the persistence of missing persons, while those who succeeded in escaping now face extremely harsh conditions in the Tawilah camps, where enormous numbers of displaced families are crammed together and essential resources are insufficient to meet even the most basic humanitarian needs.
The International Organization for Migration has reported that the number of people displaced from El-Fasher and surrounding villages has risen to 106,387 since the Rapid Support Forces’ takeover on 26 October, with humanitarian access to stranded civilians still severely constrained, making it difficult to assess their needs and highlighting the fragility of civilian protection in the region.
Testimonies also show that a significant number of civilians who remained in El-Fasher prior to 26 October were killed, detained, or besieged, and were unable to obtain life-saving assistance or relocate to safer areas. Meanwhile, the camps in Tawilah continue to receive new waves of displaced families, deepening overcrowding and worsening risks to health, sanitation, and food security.
The number of displaced people in the current camp network exceeds 650,000, including around 380,000 who arrived after the April 2025 attacks on the Zamzam camp; a figure that starkly illustrates the collapse of humanitarian infrastructure and basic services.
The crisis grows even more dire as the brutal war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces continues unabated, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 13 million people. The Rapid Support Forces now control all five states of the Darfur region in the west, while the army holds most of the remaining 13 states, including the capital Khartoum, leaving civilians trapped amid a relentless conflict that threatens their lives, health, and very right to survive.
An urgent and coordinated international intervention is desperately needed to halt the suffering of Sudan’s civilians, by accelerating the delivery of humanitarian aid, protecting people from killing and forced displacement, and exerting effective pressure on the warring parties to cease violence, alongside establishing clear mechanisms to protect displaced persons and the wounded, and to prevent attacks on civilians.
A swift, unified international response remains the only path to saving millions of Sudanese lives and preventing the further escalation of a humanitarian catastrophe that endangers not only the population but the stability of the entire region.
