Joint Statement on Famine in Sudan: INGOs Call Out Deadly Delays and Inadequate Response

24 December 2024, Port Sudan - Today’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Food Insecurity Report confirmed that Sudan’s catastrophic hunger crisis is deepening as a consequence of 20 months of unrelenting conflict and grave violations of international humanitarian law. We are sounding the alarm once again as millions of lives hang in the balance.

The report shows that famine has spread to additional areas since it was first confirmed in Zamzam displacement camp in August 2024, including Abu Shouk and Al Salam camps in North Darfur and the Western Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan. Further, famine is projected in five additional areas in North Darfur between December 2024 and May 2025, and a risk of famine exists in 17 additional areas. The expansion highlights the international community’s failure to respond with the urgency and scale this crisis demands.

Despite ongoing harvests, which before the conflict would typically offer some respite to families, the IPC report predicts that between December 2024 and May 2025, 24.6 million people will face severe levels of hunger (IPC Phase 3 and above), of which 638,000 people will fall under IPC Phase 5. The majority of people facing the worst levels of hunger live in conflict-ridden areas of Darfur, Kordofan, Al Jazeera, and Khartoum, potentially experiencing levels of food insecurity similar to those classified as Famine (IPC Phase 5) in some areas. These numbers only tell part of the story, as access and data gaps hide the true extent of hunger and starvation.

In the communities where we work, we witness the horrifying impact of extreme hunger on communities every day. People are fleeing across borders in search of food, children die at alarming rates, and women and girls bear the disproportionate burden of having to find ways to feed their families. In the areas most affected by hunger, survival means boiling tree leaves, making snacks from soil or animal feeds, begging in local markets, or engaging in survival sex.

In Kadugli, one aid worker recounts: “I visited a health facility that cared for over 50 children, all malnourished. Their bodies were little more than skin and bones. In the short time I was there, one of them died. He was not even two years old. The child’s body was wrapped in a cloth and placed on the back of a truck, with his mother by his side. The situation is almost normalized - but this is all but normal.”

Despite insecurity and access restrictions, humanitarian organizations continue to respond, including through multipurpose cash and voucher assistance which has reached about half a million people across all hunger hotspots in 2024, including North Darfur and South Kordofan. Local responders such as Emergency Response Rooms have also continued providing life-saving aid and services to their communities, often at great personal risk. But this response is far from sufficient, thwarted by lack of funds and ineffective strategies.

In 2024, the Humanitarian Response Plan for Sudan received the bulk of its allocations in the second half of the year, far too late to prevent the crisis from spiraling into famine despite repeated warnings since late 2023. The UN-led Famine Prevention Plan, adopted in April 2024, has made little progress, particularly on the establishment of humanitarian hubs in hunger hotspots.

The response has failed to prioritize the most efficient aid modalities, such as cash and voucher assistance and direct support to local responders. In many areas, food is available in markets but unaffordable to populations who have lost everything to conflict, often making cash the top priority need of communities. Community kitchens repeatedly run out of funds and are forced to stop their operations, including in El Fasher where famine is ongoing. The lack of timely and adequate interventions has allowed the crisis to escalate, putting millions of lives at risk.

We cannot afford to repeat these mistakes. According to the Global Humanitarian Overview, 30 million people will need humanitarian assistance in Sudan in 2025 - five million more than in 2024 and the largest figure in recorded history. The international community faces a moment of moral urgency to respond to Sudan’s crisis with the speed and resolve required to prevent further deterioration and must be held accountable for doing so. We specifically call on:

Donors:

• Hold a pledging conference for Sudan and its neighboring countries as soon as possible to mobilize additional, front-loaded funds for the 2025 Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan and Regional Refugee Response Plan. Every day of delay will cost lives.
• Increase access to flexible and predictable funding for local responders and mutual aid initiatives such as Emergency Response Rooms, including by removing burdensome compliance processes.

In-Country Humanitarian Leadership:

• Urgently scale-up presence, capacity and response coordination - including through the deployment of senior staff - in all areas facing the most severe levels of food insecurity (IPC 4 and 5). Where the UN is not able to do so immediately, I/NGO-led coordination models should be supported in the interim.
• Prioritize and scale-up cash and voucher assistance (CVA) wherever markets are functioning - even if at reduced level - to enable populations to buy food and other essentials while supporting local markets to stay afloat amidst the crisis, and complement CVA with in-kind aid including food, health and protection services as needed.

Diplomats:

• Intensify high-level diplomacy to ensure respect for International Humanitarian Law by all conflict parties, including addressing barriers to humanitarian access, especially through the removal of bureaucratic and administrative impediments (including visas and travel permits); ensuring the protection of civilians and the infrastructure and objects they rely on to survive, produce and distribute food; ending the use of hunger as a weapon of war. This should include a UN Security Council visit to Sudan and Chad in early 2025.
• Decouple the political process from the humanitarian response. While it is paramount to continue diplomatic efforts to bring an end to hostilities, the respect of international humanitarian law, including the obligations to facilitate humanitarian access and protect civilians, cannot be contingent on a ceasefire in Sudan.

The Sudan INGO Forum is the coordination and representation body for the international nongovernmental organization (INGO) community in Sudan. The Forum is currently comprised of 72 members and observer members providing humanitarian and development assistance and peacebuilding interventions across all 18 states of Sudan. 

For media enquiries:

Mercy Corps: allmediarelations@mercycorps.org 
INGO Forum: In English – Fashion Mawere: darfur@sudaningoforum.org
INGO Forum: In English and Arabic – Iyad Agha Tabbakha: admin@sudaningoforum.org