Joint Statement: Famine Tightens Grip on Sudan: INGOs Call for Immediate Access for Aid

July 14, 2025

The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Food Insecurity Alert highlights the devastating effects of Sudan’s conflict on the worsening hunger crisis in the country. As millions of Sudanese continue to experience starvation amidst a third consecutive year of conflict, we call for urgent action to facilitate unhindered humanitarian access to prevent further loss of life.

Famine conditions continue in areas where famine was declared or projected as of December 2024. Parties to the conflict continue to engage in intense fighting, heightening insecurity and disrupting critical trade and humanitarian routes. The violence has deliberately impeded access to many famine-affected areas, including ElFasher and Kadugli.

The alert also stresses that rates of malnutrition have skyrocketed in communities that were previously not classified as areas of highest concern. This demonstrates the devastating consequences of a lack of access to humanitarian relief and the massive scale of unmet humanitarian needs.

The findings for children in famine-affected areas are particularly concerning—in some localities, as many as 28.8% of children show signs of acute malnutrition. At this level, children will already suffer life-long complications from hunger. These findings only further underscore the need for immediate and unhindered humanitarian access in famine-affected areas.

Malnutrition and food insecurity are expected to rise significantly as the rainy season continues, overlapping with the three- to four-month lean season from July to September. Although the rainy season has already begun, humanitarian actors have a brief, urgent window of opportunity to continue pre-positioning supplies for the Darfur and Greater Kordofan regions before the rainy season peaks in late July, causing flooding and heavy damage to roads and bridges that will effectively prohibit access until late October. It is crucial that humanitarian actors be allowed to increase their efforts now to mitigate the suffering that vulnerable communities will face without sustained access to life-saving assistance over the coming months.

In light of the worsening food security situation, we call upon all parties to the conflict to ensure unimpeded humanitarian access across Sudan, especially and immediately to El Fasher, which has been under siege for nearly a year, along with guaranteed and sustained access for UN agencies nationwide. Safe and open cross-border and crossline routes for humanitarian workers and aid deliveries in Darfur must be secured, visa approvals for aid personnel expedited, and unrestricted access across Sudan ensured. These measures are urgently needed to ensure we can respond at scale to mitigate the suffering of countless Sudanese.

We also urge the international community to mobilize adequate resources to enable humanitarian actors to significantly scale up their efforts across Sudan. In particular, this support is essential to facilitate the urgent pre-positioning of life-saving supplies in Darfur and the Greater Kordofan region, where needs are rapidly escalating.

For more information or media inquiries, please contact: