The humanitarian disaster in Sudan has entered a new and alarming phase. International monitors have confirmed that famine is now gripping the cities of Al-Fashir and Kadugli, two major population centers devastated by months of siege, displacement, and conflict.
The confirmation came from the United Nations–backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the world’s most authoritative system for assessing famine. The IPC had earlier reported famine conditions in displacement camps on the outskirts of Al-Fashir. Its latest assessment now concludes that starvation has taken hold inside the city itself, following its recent capture by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
A City Consumed by Starvation
For more than a year, Al-Fashir has endured siege warfare that has emptied markets, shut down hospitals, and trapped hundreds of thousands of civilians. When the RSF seized the city, humanitarian supplies were already exhausted. Witnesses describe streets filled with abandoned homes, silent marketplaces, and families surviving on leaves and contaminated water.
Thousands have fled toward nearby villages, carrying little more than water containers and scraps of food. Those left behind face near-total isolation, cut off from trade routes and aid convoys.
Habib Allah Yakoub, a resident who escaped days after the takeover, told aid workers that daily survival was impossible. There was no food, no transportation, and leaving home to find water meant risking death from stray gunfire or looters.
Humanitarian observers report that starvation is being used as a weapon. Convoys carrying aid have been intercepted, warehouses looted, and access routes deliberately blocked. The deliberate destruction of water sources and grain stocks has deepened the crisis, leaving Al-Fashir a hollowed-out city on the edge of collapse.
Kadugli on the Brink
In South Kordofan, the city of Kadugli now faces the same fate. The IPC’s assessment places large areas of the city in the highest emergency category, known as “Catastrophe/Famine.” In practical terms, this means entire neighborhoods are already suffering mass deaths from starvation.
Local charities say Kadugli’s markets have collapsed entirely. Bread, rice, and basic staples can no longer be purchased even by those who still have money. Families are boiling wild roots to survive. Hospitals, deprived of fuel and medicine, have ceased functioning.
Relief workers emphasize that both Al-Fashir and Kadugli require immediate humanitarian corridors. Without them, famine will spread outward into neighboring provinces within weeks.
A Crisis with Regional Consequences
The collapse of food security in Sudan threatens to ripple far beyond its borders. Tens of thousands of refugees have already crossed into Chad, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. These countries, themselves struggling with drought, inflation, and food shortages, are finding it increasingly difficult to absorb new arrivals.
Regional analysts warn that uncontrolled displacement could ignite fresh instability across the Horn of Africa. Border regions that once hosted modest trade networks are now becoming corridors of desperation. In the absence of coordinated humanitarian planning, famine in Sudan risks undermining fragile progress in East African integration and economic recovery.
The Horn of Africa has long been a region of both resilience and vulnerability. Its nations share rivers, markets, and migration routes, yet their crises remain deeply interconnected. The war in Sudan has already disrupted cross-border trade, reduced remittance flows, and placed additional strain on regional food imports.
The Political Shadow Behind the Famine
Analysts argue that the famine is not merely the product of natural hardship but of deliberate policy choices made on the battlefield. The conflict between Sudan’s regular army and the RSF has turned cities into military prizes. Civilians have become leverage.
Humanitarian agencies report that both sides have obstructed relief operations at various points, but the RSF’s control of key western routes has made the situation in Darfur particularly catastrophic. Access to international assistance depends on fragile negotiations, often collapsing amid new offensives.
Diplomatic pressure from regional powers has so far produced limited results. Ceasefire proposals have been repeatedly violated, and aid corridors promised in earlier agreements remain closed. Meanwhile, the seasonal rains that could have supported harvests were disrupted by fighting, leaving fields abandoned and livestock dead.
A Call for Regional Unity
Across the Horn of Africa, leaders are beginning to acknowledge that Sudan’s collapse cannot be treated as a distant crisis. Its effects are already visible in the rising cost of grain in eastern Chad, in the swelling refugee camps in Ethiopia’s Gedaref region, and in the growing pressure on South Sudan’s fragile economy.
If famine continues to spread unchecked, the humanitarian and economic fallout could reverse a decade of regional development. Experts are urging the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union to take a more assertive role in coordinating food aid, border management, and diplomatic mediation.
The Horn’s stability depends on the collective ability of its nations to respond to shared disasters with shared solutions. Cooperation on trade, agriculture, and transport could become the foundation for resilience. Without it, famine in Sudan may ignite further crises across the region.
The Human Face of the Tragedy
In the end, the story of Al-Fashir and Kadugli is not only a tale of war and politics but of people reduced to silence by hunger. Parents bury children in dry soil. Hospitals stand empty. Entire districts vanish into displacement camps.
Famine is not declared lightly by international agencies. It is the final classification, used only when at least two adults or four children out of every 10 000 people die each day from hunger. Sudan has now crossed that threshold.
What Happens Next?
Aid groups warn that unless immediate access is granted, Sudan could face the deadliest famine of the twenty-first century. The world’s attention remains scattered by other conflicts, yet for millions of Sudanese, time has already run out.
The Horn of Africa has endured droughts, wars, and famines before, but never with its nations so economically and politically intertwined. Will this new era of integration become a force for shared salvation, or will regional divisions allow another generation to starve unseen?