Humanitarian authorities say famine has spread to two more areas of Sudan as ongoing clashes between government forces and the Rapid Support Forces continue to devastate livelihoods, markets and relief operations. The declaration by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification marks a severe escalation of an already acute crisis and heightens the urgency for expanded humanitarian access and funding.

Images released by the Norwegian Refugee Council show displaced women and children from el-Fasher taking refuge in a camp in Tawila, in the Darfur region, where they fled the fighting on Nov. 3, 2025. The scenes underscore the human toll: families uprooted from towns and farms, local market systems interrupted and basic services — health, water and sanitation — collapsing in frontline areas.

The IPC’s assessment is based on a combination of indicators including household food consumption, acute malnutrition patterns and mortality trends, and the move to broaden famine designations reflects worsening measurements in places that had already been at the brink. For residents, the practical effect is immediate: households that had been coping by selling assets, migrating or reducing food intake are now facing the categorical inability to meet minimum dietary needs without external assistance.

Economically, the spread of famine threatens to amplify regional market distortions. Sudan’s internal disruptions are already shifting commodity flows across the Sahel and Horn of Africa as traders reroute supplies away from conflict zones and import dependence rises in urban centers. Neighbouring countries face potential secondary shocks as refugee inflows strain public services and food demand. For humanitarian procurement, localized crop failures and constrained transport raise costs and complicate logistics, increasing the price tag for relief operations just as donor appetites have been stretched thin by multiple global crises.

Policy responses face two immediate hurdles: securing unimpeded humanitarian corridors and mobilizing additional financing. Aid organizations have repeatedly warned that limited access and funding shortfalls force impossible choices between life-saving assistance and broader protection and recovery programs. Without a durable pause in hostilities to permit scaled-up aid deliveries and with the agricultural season disrupted in key producing regions, relief efforts will struggle to meet the growing caseload.

Beyond the immediate emergency, the crisis in Sudan is consistent with long-term trends that have eroded resilience: protracted conflict that displaces farming households, the degradation of local markets and infrastructure, and climate variability that has made harvests more volatile. Reversing famine conditions will therefore require a two-track approach: an urgent expansion of humanitarian relief and a sustained political effort to stabilize supply chains, restore services and support a recovery in agricultural production.

The widening famine in Sudan is a stark reminder that acute hunger is rarely the result of a single shock. It emerges where conflict, economic collapse and limited international response intersect — and the scale of the challenge will test both regional stability and the capacity of the global humanitarian system to respond.