Famine is gripping two regions of war-torn Sudan, a global hunger authority says

CAIRO — Two regions of war-torn Sudan are enduring a famine that is at risk of spreading to other areas of the sprawling northeastern African country, where paramilitary fighters have been battling the military for power for more than two years, a global hunger monitoring group said Monday.

Famine is happening in El Fasher, a major city in the western Darfur region, and the town of Kadugli, in the southern South Kordofan province, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said in a new report. It is also threatening 20 other areas in Darfur and central Sudan’s Kordofan region, where fighting has intensified in recent months, according to the IPC, the leading international authority on hunger crises.

“Famine and the risk of famine are urgent priorities, but they are only the most severe symptoms of a far broader and deepening crisis affecting millions across Sudan,” the IPC wrote in its report. “This is a man-made emergency, and all steps needed to prevent further catastrophe are clear.”

The Rapid Support Forces besieged El Fasher for 18 months, cutting off much of the food and other supplies to tens of thousands of people. Last week, the paramilitary group seized the city, which had been the military’s last major holding in Darfur, and reportedly unleashed attacks that killed hundreds of civilians, though the scope of violence is unclear because communications are poor.

The RSF has also besieged Kadugli town for months, with tens of thousands of people trapped as the group tries to seize more territory from the Sudanese military.

‘Extremely high levels of malnutrition’

The war has been tearing apart Sudan since April 2023. More than 40,000 people have been killed, according to figures kept by the United Nations, which described the war in March as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. But aid groups say the true death toll could be many times higher. The fighting has driven more than 14 million people from their homes and fueled disease outbreaks.

El Fasher and Kadugli have experienced “a total collapse of livelihoods, starvation, extremely high levels of malnutrition and death,” according to the latest IPC report.

Famine is determined in areas where deaths from malnutrition-related causes reach at least 2 people, or 4 children under age 5, per 10,000; at least 1 in 5 people or households severely lack food and face starvation; and at least 30% of children under age 5 suffer from acute malnutrition based on a weight-to-height measurement — or 15% based on upper-arm circumference.

The IPC has confirmed famine only a few times, most recently in northern Gaza earlier this year during Israel’s campaign against Hamas. It also confirmed famine in Somalia in 2011, and in South Sudan in 2017 and 2020.

The IPC previously confirmed famine in five locations in Sudan. There were sprawling refugee camps near El Fasher that emptied as RSF troops advanced, with most people fleeing into the city or nearby towns. The other locations were in parts of South and West Kordofan provinces that have since also fallen into RSF hands.

The new report said about 375,000 people had been pushed into famine in Darfur and Kordofan as of September, and 6.3 million more people across Sudan face extreme levels of hunger.

Thousands flee El Fasher

Towns near El Fasher, including Tawila, Melit and Tawisha, are at risk of famine, according to the IPC. Thousands fleeing El Fasher have been trickling into those locations in recent days, though aid groups worry about the fate of tens of thousands more who are either trapped in the city or have disappeared as they tried to flee.

Doctors Without Borders said last week that its aid workers in Tawila reported that most of those arriving there were women, children and elderly people “with catastrophic levels of malnutrition.” It said all of the 70 children under 5 who arrived on Oct. 27 were acutely malnourished, with 57% of them severe cases. The next day, 1 in 5 of the 120 adult men it screened were malnourished, it said.

Sudanese arriving in Tawila have recounted running out of food during the RSF’s siege of the city and scrounging for animal fodder to eat.

Paramilitary focuses on Darfur

Since Sudan’s military retook the capital, Khartoum, earlier this year, the RSF has turned its focus to the Darfur region in the west, and to taking Kordofan to secure supply lines toward the country’s center.

Save the Children said in September that food supplies had run out in Kadugli, where it said fighting had escalated.

Another Kordofan town, Dilling, has reportedly experienced the same conditions as Kadugli, but the IPC didn’t announce famine there because of a lack of data, according to the new report.

Across Sudan, the IPC said more than 21 million people, or 45% of the population, faced acute food insecurity as of September. That marked a 6% drop from the previous report, which covered the period from December 2024 until this May.

The drop was due to reduced conflict and improved humanitarian access in Khartoum, neighboring Gezira province and the eastern province of Sennar after the military regained control of Khartoum and Gezira, allowing more than a million displaced people to return home.

The IPC called for a ceasefire as the sole measure that “can prevent further loss of life and help contain the extreme levels of acute food insecurity and acute malnutrition.”

Magdy writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Sam Mednick in Rome contributed to this report.