Sudan has become the "biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded" after 20 months of devastating war between rival generals, the International Rescue Committee said in a report released Wednesday, as the war continues.
"The country accounts for 10 percent of all people in humanitarian need, despite being home to less than one percent of global population," the New York-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) aid organisation said in their 2025 Emergency Watchlist.
Sudan tops a 2025 watchlist of global humanitarian crises released by the organisation for the second year in a row, followed by Gaza and the West Bank, Myanmar, Syria, and South Sudan.
Since April 2023, the war in Sudan between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.
War in Sudan leaves 13 million people displaced and more than half the population malnourished
Nearly nine million of those are displaced within Sudan, most in areas with decimated infrastructure and facing the threat of mass starvation.
Across the country, nearly 26 million people -- around half the population -- are facing acute hunger, according to the United Nations.
Famine has already been declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in the western Darfur region, and the United Nations has said Sudan is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.
Ongoing fighting
At least 175 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Sudan on Monday and Tuesday by barrel bombs and shelling from the warring sides, rights activists said.
More than eight barrel bombs hit the market in the North Darfur town of Kabkabiya on Monday, the pro-democracy Al-Fashir Resistance Committee said.
Emergency Lawyers, a human rights group, said densely populated civilian areas have been targeted.
The 20-month-old war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been turning increasingly bloody as ceasefire efforts have stalled, and crises elsewhere have dominated world attention.
The army has stepped up airstrikes in the half of the country that the RSF controls, while the RSF has staged raids on villages and intense artillery strikes.
The army has frequently targeted towns in North Darfur with airstrikes as it fights the RSF for control of the state capital, al-Fashir, its last foothold in the region.
It denied responsibility for the attack on Kabkabiya, while insisting that it had the right to target any location used by the RSF for military purposes.
The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
No end in sight
The IRC's report says a total of 30.4 million people were in humanitarian need across the northeast African country, making it "the largest humanitarian crisis since records began", the IRC said.
There is no end to the war in sight, with both parties intensifying strikes on residential areas in recent weeks.
The IRC warned of total "humanitarian collapse", as the health crisis was set to worsen and both sides continued to "choke humanitarian access".
Around 305 million people worldwide are in need of humanitarian support, according to IRC, with 82 percent of them in watchlist areas such as the occupied Palestinian territories, Myanmar, Syria, South Sudan and Lebanon.
"It is clear that 'the world is on fire' is a daily reality for hundreds of millions of people," IRC chief David Miliband said.
(With newswires)
