The International Rescue Committee stated in a report released on Wednesday that after 20 months of destructive war between opposing generals, Sudan had become the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.”
“Despite housing less than one percent of the world’s population, the country accounts for 10 percent of all people in humanitarian need,” the New York-based organization stated in their 2025 Emergency Watchlist.
Twelve million people have been displaced and tens of thousands murdered in a conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese regular army that began in April 2023.
Of those, about nine million are internally displaced in Sudan, with the majority residing in areas with severely damaged infrastructure and at risk of widespread famine.
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.
For the second consecutive year, Sudan tops the list of the 20 nations most at danger of humanitarian deterioration, according to the IRC’s study.
The IRC reported that 30.4 million people in the northeast African nation were in need of humanitarian assistance, making it “the largest humanitarian crisis since records began.”
With both sides stepping up their attacks on residential areas in recent weeks, there is no end in sight to the conflict.
With the health situation expected to deteriorate and both parties continuing to “choke humanitarian access,” the IRC issued a warning of complete “humanitarian collapse.”
The IRC estimates that 305 million people globally require humanitarian assistance, with 82 percent of those individuals living in designated regions like the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to IRC leader David Miliband, “it is evident that ‘the world is on fire’ is a daily reality for hundreds of millions of people.”
“Those born in unstable conflict states and those who have a chance to succeed in stable states are the two camps into which the world is being divided.”
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