The United Nations has issued a dire warning that children in Sudan’s Darfur region face imminent death from starvation within days, marking a catastrophic escalation in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Denise Brown revealed to Middle East Eye that malnutrition rates among children in North Darfur’s Um Baru have reached a staggering 53%—triple the emergency threshold—describing conditions as the most severe she has witnessed in her career.
The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), ongoing since April 2023, has created a devastating pattern of atrocities that has displaced nearly 13 million people and pushed over 40% of the population into acute food insecurity. Recent UN assessments confirm that famine conditions persist in multiple locations including el-Fasher in North Darfur and Kadugli in South Kordofan, even during what should be Sudan’s post-harvest period.
Humanitarian access remains critically constrained, with Fews Net warning that besieged towns face worsening conditions as RSF forces implement full blockades. The situation in el-Fasher—brutally seized by the RSF in October after a 550-day siege—is particularly volatile, with widespread destruction, unexploded ordnance contamination, and destroyed water infrastructure leading to cholera outbreaks. Between January and November 2025, Sudan recorded over 72,000 cholera cases, more than double the previous year’s count.
Evidence suggests systematic violence against civilians, with multiple reports of RSF fighters killing fleeing civilians and conducting door-to-door executions during the capture of el-Fasher. A Yale Humanitarian Research Lab report indicates the paramilitary group has likely buried or burned tens of thousands of bodies to conceal evidence of mass killings.
Despite the scale of suffering, the international response remains severely underfunded, with the UN’s Sudan appeal only 27% funded by late 2025. Brown emphasized that world leaders must urgently interrupt the pattern of atrocities before further devastation occurs, particularly for women and children who bear the war’s heaviest burden.