Sudan

a { text-decoration: none; color: #464feb; } tr th, tr td { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } tr th { background-color: #f5f5f5; } Communities across Sudan continued to endure the compounded impacts of conflict, mass displacement, and the collapse of essential services. Throughout 2025, Save the Children—working directly and in close partnership with national and international organizations—supported conflict‑affected and displaced communities across the country. With support from the Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF), our multi‑sectoral response reached families in Khartoum, Gezira, River Nile, Greater Kordofan, Greater Darfur, Gedaref, Blue Nile, and Red Sea states.This flexible, context‑responsive approach ensured that life‑saving assistance reached people in hard‑to-access areas while remaining grounded in local knowledge, participation, and community engagement. We are pleased to share highlights of how SHF‑supported interventions helped restore access to essential services, protect dignity, and strengthen community resilience across multiple sectors and locations. A comprehensive overview of results, geographic coverage, and sector achievements is available in the full SHF 2025 Impact Highlights. Restoring Access to Essential ServicesWater, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH): Access to clean water and safe sanitation is critical for displaced and host communities. WASH interventions improved water supply, upgraded sanitation facilities, and promoted safer hygiene practices. These efforts played a vital role in preventing disease and supporting outbreak response in areas affected by cholera and other public health risks.Health & Nutrition: Save the Children re‑established access to essential primary healthcare and nutrition services in displacement‑heavy and conflict‑affected areas. Through fixed facilities and mobile teams, children and caregivers received treatment for common illnesses, maternal and reproductive healthcare, and services to prevent and treat acute malnutrition—often free of charge and close to home.Food Security & Livelihoods (FSL): Food security and livelihood activities helped families meet immediate food needs while restoring their ability to earn income. By combining short‑term assistance with livelihood inputs and training, households strengthened their resilience, reduced harmful coping mechanisms, and were better equipped to withstand the ongoing crisis.Protection: In a context marked by displacement, psychosocial stress, and heightened protection concerns our protection program supported children and caregivers through child‑friendly spaces, psychosocial support, and community‑based protection mechanisms. These services helped restore a sense of safety, dignity, and normalcy for children living through conflict.Emergency Shelter and Non‑Food Items (NFI): For families displaced by violence or sudden shocks, emergency shelter and NFI assistance provided essential household items and temporary shelter materials. This support enabled families to stabilize, settle, and begin rebuilding their lives in new and often challenging environments. a { text-decoration: none; color: #464feb; } tr th, tr td { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } tr th { background-color: #f5f5f5; } Real Stories, Real ImpactBehind every intervention are real families whose lives have been transformed through timely, dignified assistance.“The seeds, tools, and training we received created real opportunities for my family. I learned how to produce vegetable seedlings—especially tomatoes and onions—and sell them in the local market. This has raised our family’s income. These agricultural inputs and knowledge were some of the best forms of support we could have received.”— Mother and farmer, North Kordofan State“Before, the journey for healthcare was long, exhausting, and expensive. Not everyone could afford transport, consultations, or medicines.”— Father of three, Khartoum State“Save the Children brought us 12 water tiers and built emergency latrines. Open defecation stopped completely. They also led cleaning campaigns and hygiene awareness sessions. Together, this eliminated cholera from the camp. We are truly grateful for the hygiene kits we received.”— Mother of two, Blue Nile State a { text-decoration: none; color: #464feb; } tr th, tr td { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } tr th { background-color: #f5f5f5; }

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Partnership (IPC) alerts today of famine-level acute malnutrition detected in two more localities in North Darfur, Um Baru and Kernoi. Just three months ago, the IPC warned that famine was ongoing in Darfur and Kordofan states, with a high risk that these conditions would further spread.The newly identified levels of acute malnutrition represent extreme, life-threatening deprivation, and famine may soon be confirmed by the IPC in these additional areas. For small children, the danger is especially acute: malnutrition gravely weakens their immunity, leaving them far more vulnerable to disease at a time when healthcare and other services have been severely disrupted, if not collapsed entirely. We know from global experience that famine confirmations often come too late. Thousands may have already died, and many surviving children are likely to face lifelong damage.This new alert confirms what communities and responders have been fearing for months. Starvation is rising, and becoming entrenched in areas humanitarian actors are prevented from accessing. Even in places where we can operate, resources are drastically insufficient to meet overwhelming needs and halt the spread of hunger.Save the Children, along with 21 international humanitarian organisations warn that other areas are likely to be facing similar catastrophic conditions. Yet escalating conflict and severe access restrictions prevent comprehensive assessments and timely response. For nearly three years, armed actors in Sudan have conducted deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure essential for survival. Sudan is also the site of a relentless war on women and girls, who continue to face systematic conflict-related sexual violence. This violence has displaced millions from their homes and livelihoods, devastated people’s ability to produce and distribute food, and routinely blocked their access to water, healthcare and protection services.Restricted humanitarian access, continued funding shortfalls and insufficient political will are converging into a catastrophe that should never have been allowed to unfold. Without immediate and unhindered access for humanitarian operations, alongside a rapid increase in resources, including to local actors, the spread of starvation will not cease.Note to Editors:List of INGOs: Action Against Hunger (ACF), Africa Humanitarian Action (AHA), CARE, Concordis, Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), DanChurchAid (DCA), Danish Refugee Council (DRC), Humanity & Inclusion (HI), International Rescue Committee (IRC), LM International, MedGlobal, Medical Teams International (MTI), Mercy Corps, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Plan International, Relief International (RI), Save the Children, Solidarités International (SI),Trócaire, Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (VSF), and World Vision.Sudan remains the world’s largest hunger, protection and displacement crisis, with over 33 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and over 9 million displaced internally.Nearly 29 million people are acutely food insecure (61.7% of the population)Almost 10.2 million people fall into the severe and extreme categories of food insecurity, levels associated with extreme hunger, malnutrition and death.Women are disproportionately affected: female-headed households are three times more likely to be food insecure than those led by menAcute malnutrition for children aged 6-59 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women is expected to deteriorate in 2026, with nearly 4.2 million estimated cases of acute malnutrition, including more than 800,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). This number is expected to rise as the situation continues to deteriorate.Barely 40% of the required funding to address the humanitarian crisis was secured in 202557%, more than half of the displaced people who are suffering from hunger do not receive aid due to lack of funding.

New data released today by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), global acute malnutrition rates in the Um Baru and Kernoi localities have reached nearly 53% and 34% respectively, with concerns that nearby areas may also be experiencing similar catastrophic conditions, with the extent remaining unknown due to access constraints [1].

Millions of children in Sudan have missed nearly 500 days of learning since the war started in April 2023 in what has become one of the world’s longest school closures, surpassing the worst shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Khartoum’s Karari locality, a neighbourhood restaurant becomes a lifeline each morning. Led by longtime businesswoman Ms. Samia* and her daughter Abeer*, a community-run Emergency Response Room (ERR) kitchen provides hundreds of displaced families with daily hot meals amid Sudan’s ongoing conflict.

Every minute on average, 8 people have been displaced from their homes in Sudan. This is 11,000 people every single day. Over 1,000 days, nearly 12 million people have been displaced – roughly equivalent to the entire population of Belgium – and one fifth of the population.

Sudan is one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies and one of the gravest crises for children’s rights. Every day the fighting continues, another generation of children remains shut out of school. Yet amidst all this, there are stories of children who refuse to let go of hope. Vishna Shah, Director for Child Rights Advocacy and Campaign at Save the Children International, met some of these children during her recent visit to Sudan.

The consignment is enough to keep hundreds of health facilities running for 6-12 months, allowing hundreds of thousands of children to be treated.

Umran*, 52, has worked in Sudan for 10 years supporting Save the Children’s programmes in El Fasher and in Zamzam camp, where families have been living in famine conditions since August 2024. When fighting engulfed El Fasher last week, Umran witnessed unimaginable scenes of violence and loss. After the city fell, he walked for two days without stopping - out of fear of an ambush - together with other families and their children who managed to escape. He has now joined a team of Save the Children staff supporting families fleeing El Fasher to Tawila.

After walking for four days to escape the escalating violence in El Fasher, mothers arriving in Tawila in desperate need of aid recounted harrowing journeys, telling Save the Children how they were attacked by armed men on motorbikes and some robbed along the way.

Save the Children analysed casualty reports from the Sudan Doctor’s Network - a group of medical professionals tracking the war –in October and found at least 115 civilians were killed and a further 102 injured in six attacks on the besieged town. Among these casualties were 17 children killed, and 22 children injured.

Markets, hospitals, mosques, and displacement camps have been repeatedly targeted, leaving families without food, medicine, or safe shelter. Civilians attempting to flee face extortion, ethnic targeting, sexual violence, and killings along the routes, while prohibitive costs make escape impossible for most.

New analysis by Save the Children of Global Education Cluster figures showed that about 13 million of 17 million school-age children in Sudan are out of school in one of the world’s worst education crises.

Torrential rains caused a landslide in the village of Tarsin in the Marrah Mountains in the western region of Darfur on Sunday, cutting off road access.

Save the Children aid workers travelling on a herd of donkeys have delivered the first emergency medical supplies, food, water and tarpaulins to a remote village in western Sudan that was cut off by a massive landslide this week

In a collection of heartfelt letters written by children from River Nile, Red Sea and Gedarif, they are calling for peace and a chance to learn again in Sudan which is facing one of the world’s worst education emergencies with 17 million children out of school. Hundreds of school buildings have been damaged or destroyed since the beginning of the war in Sudan in April 2023, with over 3,200 schools (17% of all schools) being used as shelters.

Save the Children and its partners spoke to over 450 of these displaced children in Tawila for the assessment “Children Caught in Conflict”, with children describing traumatic journeys and expressing fear, grief, and a profound sense of uncertainty about their futures.

Nearly 1,000 people have been killed so far this year in Sudan while seeking health care or visiting loved ones in hospital

Thousands of families have arrived injured, traumatised and with no food or water in the town of Tawila after journeys of up to 70km (40 miles) on foot to flee attacks in Sudan’s Zamzam and Al Shouk camps, Save the Children said.

To mark two years of the conflict, Save the Children commissioned Sudanese illustrator Shiroug Idris – who was herself displaced by the conflict - to highlight the impact of conflict on children’s lives.

For nearly a year, people in ZamZam camp, Abu Shouk camp and Al Fasher town have lived under siege—cut off, starved, and terrorised. Over the past four months they have endured relentless attacks, including artillery shelling and ground incursions that have killed, wounded or displaced countless civilians.

Between February 20 and 26, Sudan’s Ministry of Health [1], reported over 2243 cases of cholera - or an average of nearly 400 cases a day - in Kosti. At least 70 people are confirmed to have died from the illness during this period.

These are the latest incidents in nearly two years of war with Sudan now facing the world’s largest displacement crisis with 14 million people forced to flee their home seeking safety.

"Children are famine’s first victims and are already facing avoidable and excruciating deaths due to malnutrition and disease," Mary Lupul, Save the Children's Sudan Humanitarian Director.

Families living in Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp are resorting to desperate measure like eating one meal a day and some as far as eating animal feed to survive after four months of famine has children facing extreme food shortages with 19 months of fighting taking toll on besieged North Darfur region, Save the Children said.

The planeload of medical supplies and medicines including antibiotics such as amoxicillin, which is used to treat bacterial infections such as pneumonia, landed at Damazine Airport on 25 November.

Save the Children worker Amar Osman* shares his account from the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan as violence continues across the country.

New figures reveal over half of the 11 million displaced – or 5.8 million - are children under 18, and over one quarter – or 2.8 million - are children aged under five.