Sudan: Hunger and Fragmentation
- UN officials describe Sudan's war as producing sieges, systematic sexual violence, and child hunger at a 'breaking point.' - A disgruntled RSF general defected to the Sudanese army, while South Sudan now has about 7 million people needing humanitarian assistance. - The conflict is fragmenting armed groups and deepening regional food crises, leaving civilians with little effective outside relief (news.abplive.com) (thenationalnews.com) (maktoobmedia.com).
Sudan’s war has entered a fourth year with 14 million people displaced and nearly 34 million now needing humanitarian support. (news.un.org) United Nations officials said on April 13 that civilians are still being killed, besieged and subjected to widespread sexual violence, while aid access remains blocked in many frontline areas. On April 10, UN agencies said Sudan’s health system was in ruins as hunger spread and attacks on health care continued. (news.un.org 1) (news.un.org 2) The war began on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, two former allies that turned their power struggle into a national conflict. UN officials now describe Sudan as the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crisis. (news.un.org) The fighting is also splintering the armed groups themselves. Maj. Gen. al-Nour Ahmed Adam, a senior Rapid Support Forces commander known as al-Qubba, defected this month and was received by army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan on April 19, according to AP and Sudanese reporting. (pbs.org) (sudantribune.com) AP reported that Adam’s break with the Rapid Support Forces followed disputes with its leadership after the fall of El Fasher, the army’s last major stronghold in Darfur, in October 2025. The defection does not appear to change the military balance, but it shows strain inside a force that still controls most of Darfur. (abcnews.com) (thenationalnews.com) Sudan’s war is pushing the crisis across borders. In South Sudan, the UN World Food Programme says 7.56 million people are expected to face crisis-level hunger or worse during the April-to-July 2026 lean season, with 28,000 people already in catastrophe conditions in Upper Nile State. (wfp.org) South Sudan’s 2026 humanitarian plan says nearly 1.3 million refugees and returnees had arrived from Sudan by the end of November 2025, adding pressure to food supplies, health services and transport routes already strained by floods, drought and conflict. (unocha.org) Children are carrying a large share of the damage. UNICEF says Sudan now has 24 million children at risk from the war, and earlier estimated that more than 15 million children needed humanitarian assistance as the conflict entered its third year. (unicef.org 1) (unicef.org 2) Aid agencies say the next test is not military but logistical: whether food, medicine and cash can reach civilians in Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum and the borderlands before another lean season closes in. Three years into the war, the front lines are shifting faster than the relief effort. (news.un.org) (wfp.org)
