Humanitarian crisis escalates in Darfur as aid needs soar

As Sudan’s war approaches its third anniversary — marking the conflict that began on April 15, 2023 — the country is engulfed in a deepening humanitarian crisis marked by mass displacement, collapsing health services, rising malnutrition and growing protection risks for women and children, with aid workers warning that the scale of need now far exceeds the available response.

Over the past three years since the war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, more than 12 million people have been displaced, with 34 million people — about two-thirds of Sudan’s total population — left in need of humanitarian support, marking the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, according to the International Rescue Committee.

Survivors’ testimonies and humanitarian agencies describe a region where families continue to flee violence, struggle to access food and clean water, and confront severe shortages of medical care amid repeated waves of displacement.

“The humanitarian situation in Darfur, and in Sudan in general, is extremely dire,” said Ali Almohammed, emergency health manager at Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, describing a crisis defined by “the collapse of protection for civilians, displacement, destruction of health services, and a level of unmet medical and humanitarian need”.

He said in an interview with China Daily that women and children remain among the most vulnerable, facing heightened risks from disease, malnutrition, violence and lack of access to essential care as the conflict grinds on.

For many families, the danger does not end when they escape the front lines. Women and girls continue to face insecurity on roads, in markets, in fields and inside displacement camps, even in areas where fighting has shifted elsewhere, according to a report released by MSF on March 30.

“Every day, when people go to the market, there are four or five cases of rape. When we go to the farm, this happens,” said a 40-year-old woman from Jebel Marra in Sudan, as quoted in the report.

Another survivor from a camp for internally displaced people near Nyala in Sudan, described the constant fear facing displaced women and girls. “Our life is so difficult here. We went outside the camp, and when we went outside, they attacked us and they raped us … This is happening to girls, every day — every day, in our area.”

These testimonies reflect the broader protection crisis confronting displaced communities, where even the search for food, water and basic necessities can expose women and children to further violence and deepen the humanitarian emergency.

According to Almohammed, the most urgent needs remain basic lifesaving support: safe access to healthcare, food, treatment for malnutrition, clean water, shelter, essential medicines, protection services and mental health support.

Among newly displaced people fleeing North Darfur and El Fasher, he said, there is a growing demand for emergency trauma care, reproductive health services and confidential support for survivors of sexual violence.

Health services across the region are under severe strain.

In some of the worst-affected conflict zones, including Darfur, an estimated 70 to 80 percent of health facilities are either closed or barely functioning because of shortages of staff, medicines, vaccines and medical equipment, according to MSF data.

Waves of displacement

After successive waves of displacement from El Fasher and Zamzam, Almohammed said already fragile services in places such as Tawila have been overwhelmed. “This is not just a question of some shortages,” he said. “It is a structural mismatch between massive needs and a very limited operational response.”

The impact is being felt most sharply among children. “They are being displaced, exposed to violence, pushed into malnutrition, and cut off from routine healthcare, vaccination, education and protection services,” he said.

The MSF report underscores the scale of the crisis for minors, noting that in South Darfur, 20 percent of survivors of sexual violence were under the age of 18, including 41 children under five. In Tawila, 27 percent of survivors seen in late 2025 were also under 18.

Almohammed said overcrowded shelters, poor sanitation, limited food supplies and weak vaccination coverage are contributing to rising cases of measles, malaria, cholera and respiratory infections, while trauma-related injuries and maternal health complications continue to increase.

In the report, another survivor near Nyala described how even searching for food for her children ended in violence. “I was just trying to get something for my children,” she said after recounting how three men attacked her on her way home. “I feel so sad. I feel destroyed.”

MSF workers said that beyond physical injuries, the mental toll of the conflict is immense. “People are not only surviving bombardment, displacement and hunger; many have witnessed killings, lost relatives, and in many cases endured direct violence,” Almohammed said. “Without psychosocial and mental health services, the response is incomplete.”

MSF said that survivors urgently need confidential clinical care, treatment of injuries, emergency contraception, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, child protection services and functioning referral pathways.

Almohammed said that as Sudan marks another year of war, humanitarian agencies are calling for increased international support to expand lifesaving assistance and restore protection for civilians, warning that without urgent action the crisis in Darfur will continue to deepen.

sharon@chinadailyafrica.com