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Current Requirements (US$)$2.87 billion
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Current People Hyper Prioritized14 million
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Current Hyper Prioritized Requirements$2.14 billion
GHO estimates at launch (8 December 2025)
Crisis overview
Well into its third year, the conflict in Sudan continues to fuel a humanitarian and protection crisis of catastrophic proportions. Civilians are being systematically targeted and terrorized, as horrific atrocities—including mass killings, summary executions, ethnically-motivated violence, abductions and indiscriminate attacks—are reported at chilling scale. Conflict-related sexual violence remains rampant and relentless, while children are recruited, abducted and subjected to other grave violations.
Civilian objects such as hospitals, schools and markets continue to be attacked. Landmines and explosive ordnance litter large parts of the country, posing tremendous risks to the civilian population. As of October 2025, 2.6 million people have returned since November 2024—mainly to Khartoum and Aj Jazirah—while 9.6 million people remain internally displaced in Sudan, many of whom live in extremely precarious conditions. Across the country, communities report an urgent need to scale up protection, mental health, psychosocial support and other services due to the widespread trauma inflicted by the ongoing violence.
Sudan
People offload food assistance from trucks during a humanitarian distribution, helping support communities facing severe food insecurity.
WFP/Abubakr GarelnabiThe scale and brutality of the conflict have continued to exacerbate humanitarian needs over the past 12 months. Mass hunger has taken hold in large parts of the country, with 29 million people acutely food insecure and 23 areas in or at risk of famine. Women and girls are particularly impacted; three-quarters of female-headed households in Sudan are estimated to be food insecure. Multiple epidemics—including cholera, malaria and dengue—are spreading as the country’s health care, water and sanitation systems crumble. Less than 30 per cent of health facilities are functioning in the worst-affected areas and more than half of people across the country report difficulties in accessing safe water.
Across Sudan, 33.7 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2026, an increase of 3.3 million people compared to 2025. All localities in the country are assessed to be in inter-sectoral severity level 3 or above, with needs especially acute across the Darfur and Kordofan regions, where more than 80 per cent of the local population require humanitarian assistance.
While people’s suffering has surged, funding cuts in 2025 have deprived millions of the assistance they rely on. Community consultations have indicated massive and urgent gaps across sectors, as aid agencies have been forced to scale back life-saving interventions. If these trends continue, more people will struggle to stay alive as they see their food rations cut, protection services disappear, water sources dry up, and health centers shut down.
Response priorities and financial requirements for 2026
Over the past year, humanitarian organizations have been forced to significantly scale back life-saving interventions due to drastic funding cuts. Access constraints, including active fighting and violence against aid workers, also impeded aid delivery particularly in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, while some areas—including Khartoum and Aj Jazirah—became more accessible over the course of the year.
In light of the dire funding situation in 2025, the humanitarian community undertook a geographic prioritization exercise in September, aimed at strengthening the delivery of integrated, multi-sectoral life-saving assistance in locations where people’s needs are most severe and where a conducive operating environment is in place to facilitate aid delivery. This led to the identification of 17 prioritized localities, mainly in the Darfur and Kordofan regions as well as Khartoum and Aj Jazirah, where aid organizations are now scaling up the intersectoral integrated response.
While humanitarian needs are expected to remain alarmingly high next year, aid agencies are preparing to further limit their response parameters as they brace for additional funding cuts. As a result, only localities in inter-sectoral severity 4 and 5, and those with high sectoral severity in inter-sectoral severity 3 are included in the overall target and financial requirements, leaving at least 14.2 million people—including those on the verge of reaching extreme severity levels—outside the scope of the response. As part of this strict boundary-setting exercise, activities focusing on early recovery, rehabilitation of services and livelihood support—which were underlined as central priorities in the community consultations conducted for the HNRP—will be shifted to development frameworks, including the Interim Cooperation Framework. In order to deliver this bare-minimum package of assistance for those in most severe need, the humanitarian community is requesting $2.8 billion to reach 20.4 million people.
North Darfur, Sudan
Tawila Emergency Room responding to the influx from El Fasher to Tawila through community kitchen.
Tawila Emergency RoomWithin these parameters, aid agencies will focus on delivering principled, effective and accountable multi-sectoral life-saving assistance. Protection will remain central to the response, with a key focus on reaching those most at-risk, including women and girls, people with disabilities, older persons, children and ethnic minorities. Given the fluid conflict dynamics in Sudan, humanitarian partners will remain agile, adjusting planning and preparedness based on evolving needs on the ground. Concerted advocacy, engagement and access negotiations will remain a key focus area in 2026 to ensure that aid reaches people in need rapidly and without undue hindrance.
In line with the Humanitarian Reset, community-driven response and localization will be key tenets in 2026: Consultations with more than 3,200 community members were conducted to inform the 2026 HNRP, providing clear indications of people’s priorities and preferences to help inform response planning. This includes strengthening cash-based assistance where market conditions allow, with community members underscoring through both the consultations and recent needs assessment that this represents their top preferred modality of assistance.
Sudanese partners—including local and national NGOs, mutual aid groups, women-led organizations and other frontline responders—will continue to drive much of the response in 2026 and will be particularly critical for aid delivery in hard-to-reach areas. Over the past year, progress has been made to adapt humanitarian coordination structures to strengthen their inclusion and participation, which will continue into 2026. During consultations, national and local partners also underscored the importance of increased donor support to ensure sufficient resources and capacity to respond.
Sudan
2025 in review: Response highlights and consequences of inaction
Response highlights
Humanitarian access
Between January and September 2025, 15.1 million people were reached with at least one form of assistance. Of these, only 2.8 million people were reached with multi-sectoral assistance.
Community feedback
154,000 feedback cases were received and addressed through the Inter-Agency Community Feedback Mechanism (CFM), with 89 per cent of cases closed. A network of 150 volunteer community champions strengthened accountability to affected people by serving as a direct, face-to-face channel with communities especially in hard-to-reach areas.
Localization
In 2025, the Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF) is allocating $25 million to support mutual aid groups (MAGs)—including Emergency Response Rooms—across Sudan. With these funds, MAGs have sustained hundreds of community kitchens across the country, facilitated the evacuation of civilians and provided access to essential services in some of the most hard-to-reach areas. By August 2025, the SHF had supported over 800 MAGs, more than one-third of which were women-led organizations.
Gedaraf, Sudan
Women farmers in Gerisha, cultivate their fields using seeds, tools and training provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
UNDP/Giles ClarkeConsequences of funding cuts
Women and girls
Forty women and girls safe spaces (WGSS) in 28 localities were forced to close.
Cash assistance
Over 250,000 people did not receive cash-based individual protection assistance (IPA) that could cover basic safety needs, increasing their exposure to exploitation and harmful movement.
Food Security
Only 3.5 million people severely and extreme food insecure, out of 10 million, are receiving regular monthly food assistance across Sudan.
Health
More than 180 health facilities are not being supported, affecting almost 2.7 million people’s ability to access health care services.
Underfunding
National and local partners have been particularly impacted by funding cuts. Already in March, more than 70 per cent of community kitchens in Sudan were reported to have ceased operations due to lack of funds.
Shelter
Despite being the world’s largest displacement crisis, only 7.5 per cent of 2.2 million people targeted have received shelter assistance, leaving over 2 million people exposed to harsh conditions and protection risks.
Sennar, Sudan
A mother sits in Sennar Maternity Hospital, now powered by a solar energy system to ensure continuous care, gently holding her newborn in her arms.
UNFPAAccess constraints & attacks against aid workers/facilities
Aid workers
84 aid workers have been killed, injured, kidnapped, or detained since the beginning of 2025.
Attacks against health care
60 attacks against health care have been recorded since the start of 2025, killing more than 1,400 patients and health care workers.
Safety and Security
Hundreds of thousands of civilians were under siege in El Fasher, and siege-like conditions in Kadugli and Dilling in 2025, making it near impossible for humanitarian actors to provide lifesaving aid to affected people. Besieged populations faced severe restrictions in their freedom of movement, with some actively denied access to seek assistance elsewhere.
Humanitarian operations
Humanitarian operations have been constrained by bureaucratic and administrative impediments, hindering the deployment of aid workers to some of the most affected regions, as well as delaying and sometimes obstructing life-saving aid convoys across frontlines.