On 15 May 2026, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, and UNICEF jointly warned that nearly 19.5 million people in Sudan — two of every five Sudanese — are facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity.
The numbers are difficult to absorb at scale. An estimated 825,000 children under five are expected to suffer Severe Acute Malnutrition in 2026 — the deadliest form, requiring urgent treatment. That figure is seven percent higher than 2025 and 25 percent higher than pre-conflict levels. Between January and March alone, nearly 100,000 children were admitted for treatment.
Conflict-driven displacement remains at extraordinary levels. Close to 14 million people have been forced to flee, including roughly 4.3 million refugees who have crossed into neighbouring countries unequipped to receive them. By the UN’s measure, 30 million Sudanese — well over half the population — required humanitarian assistance in 2025. That figure is projected to rise to 33.7 million in 2026.
The war, now entering its fourth year, began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — two factions once allied in the transitional government that followed the 2019 ouster of long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system has confirmed famine in El Fasher in North Darfur, and most recently in Kadugli in South Kordofan. Twenty additional localities are at risk.
The 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for Sudan is 20 percent funded.
Of every story in this edition, this is the one the world is failing to look at. Sudan’s war has produced more displacement than any other conflict on earth, and a fraction of the coverage given to conflicts in wealthier regions. That ratio is what The Waypoint exists to correct.
— Sources: UN Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Programme, UNICEF, Al Jazeera, NPR, Health Policy Watch