Sudan 2026: Millions Face Death

More than three years after war erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023, the country is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes. Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has devastated cities and villages, destroyed livelihoods, and forced millions of people from their homes.

What began as a struggle for power has become a struggle for survival for much of the Sudanese population. An estimated 33.7 million people now need humanitarian assistance, while millions have lost homes, farms, businesses, and access to the basic services they once depended upon. Continuing violence and restrictions on humanitarian access have made it extraordinarily difficult to reach many of those most in need.

Years of fighting have also produced one of the largest displacement crises in the world. More than 14 million people have been forced from their homes at some point since the war began, with some humanitarian assessments placing the cumulative number displaced over the course of the conflict even higher. At its peak in January 2025, nearly 11.6 million people were internally displaced within Sudan alone.

Since then, millions of Sudanese have begun returning to their areas of origin, bringing the number of people currently displaced inside the country down. By the end of June 2026, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency that tracks migration and displacement, estimated that approximately 8.7 million people remained internally displaced, while about 4.65 million people had returned to their home areas. These lower current figures do not mean the displacement crisis has ended. Many families are returning to communities where homes, hospitals, markets, water systems and other basic infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed, while continuing violence is still forcing people from their homes in other parts of the country.

For millions of Sudanese, displacement has also meant losing the land, jobs and local markets that once provided their food. Farmers have been driven from their fields, planting and harvesting have been disrupted, transportation networks have been damaged, and humanitarian assistance has repeatedly been blocked or delayed. The result is an enormous hunger crisis.

According to the latest comprehensive food-security assessment, nearly 19.5 million people — about two out of every five people in Sudan — were facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse. More than 5 million were experiencing emergency levels of hunger, while nearly 135,000 had reached catastrophic levels, where people face extreme food shortages, starvation, severe malnutrition and an increased risk of death. Famine has already been confirmed in parts of Sudan during the war, and the latest assessment warns that 14 areas across North Darfur, South Darfur and South Kordofan remain at risk of famine if conflict intensifies and humanitarian access and food movement are further restricted. Conditions were expected to deteriorate further during the June-to-September 2026 lean season.

Children are among those in greatest danger. Conflict, displacement, hunger and disease are combining to produce an enormous malnutrition emergency. More than 825,000 children under the age of five are expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition in 2026, an increase of 7 percent from 2025 and 25 percent above prewar levels. Without urgent nutritional and medical treatment, severe acute malnutrition can be fatal.

The same conditions driving hunger are also making disease more dangerous. Sudan's health system has been devastated by the war, with hospitals and clinics damaged, looted, attacked, or forced to close. An estimated 21 million people need health assistance. At the same time, malaria, dengue, measles, hepatitis E, diphtheria, and other diseases have spread among populations already weakened by hunger, displacement, and inadequate access to clean water and sanitation.

Health facilities and medical workers have themselves become victims of the conflict. By April 2026, the World Health Organization had verified 217 attacks on health care since the war began. The destruction of hospitals, ambulances and other medical services has left people without treatment at precisely the time they need it most.

The full number of people who have died because of the war remains unknown, but the true toll is believed to be far higher than documented deaths alone suggest. Large areas of Sudan are extremely difficult for journalists, humanitarian organizations and independent observers to reach, communications have repeatedly been disrupted, and many deaths are never independently recorded.

The human cost also extends far beyond those killed directly by bombs, gunfire and other violence. People are dying from starvation, disease, severe malnutrition and the collapse of medical care — deaths that are much more difficult to document and may never appear in conventional conflict statistics. The true death toll may never be known, but it is clear that the war has taken far more lives than can be established through documented battlefield deaths alone.

Yet humanitarian organizations trying to prevent further deaths continue to face severe shortages of money and access. Food, medicine, clean water and nutritional treatment can save lives, but relief organizations cannot provide them on the scale required without adequate international support.

This should not be happening. Millions of people are facing hunger, disease and displacement, while more than 825,000 severely malnourished children are at risk. We cannot simply sit back and watch as this catastrophe continues.

Sudan cannot continue to be treated as a forgotten crisis. Humanitarian assistance must be dramatically increased, aid organizations must be given safe and unrestricted access to civilians, and international pressure must be brought against attacks on civilians, hospitals, and humanitarian operations.

HOW YOU CAN HELP
Disclaimer: These organizations are provided as informational resources for those wishing to assist people affected by the crisis in Sudan. Their inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by Earth Future Action. Donors are encouraged to review each organization and make their own decisions before contributing.

Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) — Provides emergency medical care and operates hospitals and health programs in Sudan.

Islamic Relief Worldwide — Provides emergency food, clean water, cash assistance, temporary shelter and other lifesaving humanitarian support to families affected by the war in Sudan.

International Rescue Committee (IRC) — Provides health care, nutrition, clean water and other emergency assistance to families affected by the war in Sudan.

MATW Project USA — Provides humanitarian assistance to people affected by the Sudan crisis, helping vulnerable families and displaced communities with essential emergency relief.

EARTH FUTURE ACTION

SUDAN 2026