Attachments
Overview
UNHCR’s financial requirements for 2025 for the Sudan situation emergency response – in Sudan and
neighbouring countries – amounts to $1.1 billion.
Main developments in the emergency
Despite diplomatic efforts, the conflict in Sudan has continued unabated since April 2023. It has become the largest and most devastating displacement, humanitarian and protection crises in the world today. The conflict has involved extreme levels of violence and human rights violations against civilians, including sexual violence, torture, arbitrary killings, extortion of civilians and targeting of specific ethnic groups.
Clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have displaced close to 12 million people inside and outside Sudan. The main refugee-hosting countries are the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda. As of November 2024, over 3 million people had fled Sudan since the outbreak of the conflict.
This includes nearly 2.5 million refugees and asylum-seekers. In addition, Sudan was also a large refugee-hosting country and some 677,000 refugees that had been residing there have been compelled to return in adverse conditions, mainly to South Sudan, but also to the Central African Republic and Ethiopia. Another estimated 260,000 refugees in Sudan who were largely self-reliant prior to the conflict were forced to self-relocate within Sudan to relatively safer areas, putting a strain on already limited resources, infrastructure and social services.
With the continued fighting in Sudan, there are nearly 8.5 million internally displaced persons
(IDPs) since the onset of the conflict; approximately half of this number are living within host communities while the rest are in gathering sites. Dire humanitarian conditions persist across Sudan along with persistent challenges in accessing humanitarian aid due to ongoing insecurity, road closures, and limited transportation options. Displaced households cannot access goods and services through markets due to extreme inflation, supply shortages, looting, cash shortages, and telecommunication outages which continue to hinder access to banking services. Food remains the top reported need.
Since October 2024, over 343,000 people have been displaced from Aj Jazirah following attacks by RSF on multiple villages, with the majority moving to Gedaref (57 per cent), followed by Kassala (30 per cent), and River Nile State (13 per cent) (IOM DTM). Many of those displaced were already displaced prior to the escalation in clashes and experienced secondary or tertiary displacement.
Prior to the eruption of the current conflict, there were over 4.8 million people already living in displacement in Sudan: 3.7 million IDPs, mainly in Darfur; and over 1 million refugees – the second highest refugee population in Africa, mainly from South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Syrian Arab Republic, but also from the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad and Yemen.
Sudan is also facing the worst levels of food insecurity in its history, with a staggering 26 million people suffering from acute hunger. Famine conditions were confirmed in August 2024, and the situation has been particularly critical for people trapped in the conflict-affected areas of Aj Jazirah, Darfur, Khartoum and Kordofan. Concurrently, Sudan has also been struggling with heavy rains and flooding experienced in 13 of 18 states. Disease outbreaks, especially cholera, continue to drive humanitarian needs, worsening the humanitarian situation. Needs are increasing in the face of ongoing disruptions of basic public health services, including vaccination, disease surveillance, functions of public health laboratories and rapid response teams.
Most refugees from Sudan arrive in asylum countries in dire conditions, with little or no assets or resources. Many have encountered violence during flight, and in particular, women and girls faced gender-based violence (GBV) risks when their homes came under attack, while in transit, in temporary shelters, and at the borders.
Family separation is also a concern. Refugees exhibit high levels of mental distress, and reports of intimate partner violence in CAR, Chad, and South Sudan, account for 79, 66 and 52 per cent of disclosed GBV incidents occurring in the camps, respectively. At the same time, a relatively large proportion of the Sudanese refugee population in some countries are urban and educated, with professional skills. To meet the needs of the displaced, asylum countries will need to expand and strengthen tailored protection and assistance programmes for refugee populations.
Displacement, both within and outside the country, is expected to continue, due to the ongoing conflict, insecurity, economic collapse, and the deterioration or complete breakdown in some areas of key public services. Despite attempts at various ceasefires and peace agreements, restoration to peace has been unsuccessful.
In the absence of peace, people will likely continue to flee out of the country, with over 5 million refugees, returnees and host community members in need in neighbouring and nearby countries by the end of the year. Land travel will remain the most widely used mode of transportation despite remote entry points to neighbouring countries. In 2024, partners in the Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRP) scaled up and established themselves in these remote locations, but these areas have difficult conditions that required extensive and costly logistical arrangements. UNHCR and its partners will need to continue providing life-saving assistance and onward transportation for new arrivals to camps or settlements for refugees and other destinations for returnees, while continuing to establish and further develop new settlements created since the start of the conflict.