International community must urgently respond to humanitarian crisis in Sudan

“Currently 30 million people are in need of humanitarian support in Sudan, 11.5 million people have been forced from their homes by the conflict, and levels of hunger and disease are soaring,” Concern’s Horn of Africa regional director, Amina Abdulla, said.  “Famine has been detected in at least five areas and a further 17 areas are at risk of famine.”

“Yet after two years of conflict this crisis is continuing to deteriorate, against the background of a widening gap between the funding needed to meet growing needs and the money received.”

Concern is calling on the international community to: 

• Renew humanitarian diplomacy at the highest level to end the conflict, to increase pressure on all parties to resume talks, cease the fighting, and ensure the protection of civilians.
• Prioritise humanitarian access to fight famine and address the immediate needs of millions of vulnerable people. Donors and UN member states must redouble efforts to ensure that the conflict parties facilitate rapid, unimpeded and safe access for humanitarian actors and supplies across conflict lines and cross-border through all entry points.
• Close the funding gap. Sudan’s 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan calls for USD$4.16 billion to reach 20.9 million people who are in need in Sudan. As of April 8, this response plan is only 10% funded. Funding projections for 2025 are bleak as key donors announce cuts to their foreign aid spending. 

Concern is responding on the ground, both within Sudan and in neighbouring Chad and South Sudan where millions of people have crossed in search of safety and humanitarian assistance. 

In Sudan its teams are working in West Darfur, West Kordofan, South Kordofan and Port Sudan. Concern is supporting and supplying health and nutrition services in clinics across the country and has reached 93 facilities since the start of the conflict. The clinics are treating acutely malnourished children, pregnant women and new mothers (see Notes to the Editor).  They are also providing wider health services and have reached over 435,000 people with health and nutrition support. 

In addition, Concern is delivering cash assistance, food aid, and essential emergency items, including pots, pans, blankets, tarpaulin, soap, and menstrual pads, to displaced families.

In total, Concern has reached more than 483,000 people across all areas of operation since April 2023.

Concern is also responding in South Sudan and Chad where over two million people have crossed since the conflict began in April, 2023. 

Chad

In eastern Chad, more than 931,000 people have crossed the border since the conflict began.

The Chad-based response also includes:

• Supporting primary health and nutrition services to displaced people and host communities;
• Building 50 boreholes to provide safe drinking water in displaced sites and surrounding villages for more than 104,000 people;
• Supporting communities by providing cash transfers and programmes to help create sustainable livelihoods and income generating activities for more than 10,800 households;
• Supporting access to primary schools close to displacement sites in Sila, by providing additional teachers, school kits, small rehabilitation and classroom furniture and psychosocial activities. 

South Sudan

Over one million people have crossed into South Sudan since the conflict began. Concern’s response includes:

• Life-saving cash assistance to over 11,500 people, with the support of Irish Aid;
• Distributing shelter materials and household items such as plastic sheeting, blankets, mosquito nets, cooking sets and solar lamps;
• Building latrines, drilling boreholes and rehabilitating damaged bore holes;
• Operating five mobile health clinics.

For media queries contact Eamon Timmins, Media Relations Manager, Concern Worldwide, at 087 9880524 or eamon.timmins@concern.net

Notes to the editor (with accompanying photo)

One-year old Faheem*, is one of many children treated for malnutrition at a clinic in Ardamata, West Darfur, which was repaired and reopened by Concern, with funding from the European Union. 

Food is scarce in Ardamata, West Darfur, and Faheem became severely malnourished. His mother, Samiya*, brought him to the nearby health centre, which had previously been ransacked and looted the fighting reached the area. The boy was screened by a nutrition team and is now on a course of emergency therapeutic treatment. Samiya says his condition is improving every day.

At the health centre, business is brisk. Concern’s Dr Rimaz Maccido says the nutrition team at this facility is currently treating over 100 children for acute malnutrition, 27 of them severe. Concern is also supporting the centre with staff, medicines, and vaccines, as much of the health system in West Darfur is in disarray because of the conflict.

*Names have been changed to protect the person’s identity