Children expected to die of hunger in Darfur ‘within days’, says UN Sudan chief
Children in Darfur are expected to die from hunger “within days” as famine conditions persist more than 1,000 days into the brutal conflict, the United Nations' top Sudan official has warned.
Speaking to Middle East Eye on Wednesday, following recent UN missions to conflict-affected areas, Denise Brown, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said aid agencies were uncovering “horrendous” conditions as limited access is negotiated to previously unreachable locations.
Brown said that two weeks ago the UN found malnutrition rates among children in Um Baru in North Darfur to have reached 53 percent.
“This is three times higher than the standard emergency levels. I've actually never seen anything like this,” she told MEE, speaking from Port Sudan.
Many of these children are suffering severe acute malnutrition, a deadly condition if left untreated.
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“We can expect deaths within days, for sure weeks,” Brown said. “Frankly, it’s quite devastating to see this in the communities.”
The war in Sudan, which has been raging since April 2023, triggered what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed thousands, displaced nearly 13 million people, and pushed over 40 percent of the population into acute food insecurity.
“There's a pattern of atrocities that have been carried out in Sudan,” Brown said.
“World leaders need to work out how to interrupt that pattern before the next one takes place. This is of paramount importance for the women and children of this country who are bearing the brunt of this war.”
Brown’s warning aligns with the latest findings from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net).
In its latest assessment in November, based on the IPC classification, Fews Net reported that famine conditions were persisting in el-Fasher in North Darfur and Kadugli in South Kordofan, even during what should be Sudan’s post-harvest period.
Children in Darfur are expected to die from hunger “within days” as famine conditions persist more than 1,000 days into the brutal conflict, the United Nations' top Sudan official has warned.
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Fews Net also said it was possible that Dilling, another town in South Kordofan, was experiencing famine.
The agency warned that in Kadugli and Dilling, which are both besieged, famine was likely to continue through May unless humanitarian access becomes consistent and sustained.
“Humanitarian access is expected to worsen in the coming months as the Rapid Support Forces seek to fully blockade both towns,” the monitor said.
However, Fews Net said that conditions in el-Fasher – which was brutally seized by the RSF in October after more than 550 days of siege – were so volatile that it cannot predict the level of food insecurity for the next two months, citing “ongoing deaths, starvation, and mass displacement”.
Brown confirmed that UN teams have accessed el-Fasher twice in recent weeks, most recently on Tuesday.
“Much of the town is destroyed,” she said, adding that heavy shelling has left widespread contamination from unexploded ordnance and landmines.
“We’re limiting our movements to paved roads. We don’t want to drive over anything we can’t see.”
UN teams have focused on hospitals, markets and displaced populations, delivering water purification tablets, chlorine, health supplies and nutritional assistance for malnourished children. Clean water remains one of the most urgent needs.
“Pumps have been destroyed because of the war, so people are not able to access clean water,” Brown said, warning of renewed cholera outbreaks.
Between January and late November 2025, Sudan recorded more than 72,000 cholera cases, more than double the number reported during the same period in 2024.
Over 1,000 new cases were recorded in just four weeks between late October and November, with increases documented in southern Sudan's Kordofan region.
Kordofan ‘under-reported’
The humanitarian crisis has been intensified by mass displacement and siege warfare.
Fews Net estimates that at least 106,387 people were displaced following the RSF’s takeover of el-Fasher by late November.
Many civilians remain trapped in and around the town, unable to flee due to insecurity, blocked routes, the risk of kidnapping, or prohibitive transport costs.
Multiple eyewitnesses described to MEE how the RSF killed fleeing civilians and carried out door-to-door killings when it took the city.
Fighters also took blood from civilians trying to escape the city, MEE reported.
Meanwhile, a report by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) in mid-December suggested that the RSF was engaging in a campaign to destroy evidence of mass killings in el-Fasher. The analysis showed that the paramilitary group has most likely buried or burned tens of thousands of bodies since seizing the city.
The World Food Programme last month estimated that between 70,000 and 100,000 people may still be inside el-Fasher.
Brown said she was unable to give precise figures for civilians still in the city, but stressed that the UN’s repeated visits underscored the scale of need.
“Whether it’s hundreds or thousands, it’s definitely not hundreds of thousands, and they need assistance,” she said.
“These people have been living under siege for more than 500 days. The economy is disrupted, agricultural production is disrupted. Basic social services – I don’t think we can say they even exist.”
Meanwhile, Brown warned that conditions in Kordofan are rapidly deteriorating, a reality she described as “under-reported”.
Brown herself was forced to abandon a planned visit to Kadugli in December after six UN peacekeepers were killed the day before her arrival.
“Our access there is quite difficult,” she said. “We are trying to send convoys into Kadugli. We have several convoys on the road, negotiating that access.”
In the western Nuba Mountains, Fews Net warned that rural communities around Kadugli and Dilling face a credible risk of famine emerging if fighting isolates them from already scarce sources of food and income.
Even if famine does not fully materialise by January, the monitor warned that starvation, acute malnutrition and hunger-related mortality are likely to rise further during the pre-lean season.
“There’s a pattern of displacement here which is repeated,” Brown said. “It’s not a static situation. We’re constantly having to adapt to what’s going on.”
A 'crime scene'
Following the UN’s most recent visit, Brown said el-Fasher continues to be described as a “crime scene”, but that it's not the remit of her office to gather evidence of war crimes.
The International Criminal Court has an open investigation into war crimes in Darfur, including the latest situation in el-Fasher, the office of the prosecutor has told MEE.
"We are not human rights investigators. We are not going into these communities looking to collect evidence," said Brown.
'Horrendous, shocking, appalling are the words that come to mind'
- Denise Brown, UN Sudan chief
During a visit to al-Dabbah in Northern State, where around 80,000 people have fled from Darfur and Kordofan, Brown said the violence was visible not only in testimonies but in physical wounds.
“It’s not just the stories,” she said. “It’s actually what you see on people’s bodies.”
She recalled meeting an eight-year-old boy whose foot had been amputated after he was caught in artillery fire. “His feet were basically destroyed and had to be removed,” she said.
Despite Sudan being described by the UN as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the response remains drastically underfunded. As of late 2025, the UN’s Sudan appeal was just 27 percent funded, largely affected by US funding cuts under the Trump administration.
Brown, however, insisted Sudan remains a top UN priority, pointing to repeated high-level visits by senior officials since she took up her post in September.
Still, she said she struggled to convey the scale of suffering.
“Horrendous, shocking, appalling are the words that come to mind,” she said. “It’s really difficult to convey the pain, the trauma, the fear, the suffering caused by this war.”
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