Humanitarian situation in Sudan
A Westminster Hall debate on the humanitarian situation in Sudan is scheduled for Tuesday 22 July 2025, from 2.30pm to 4.00pm. The debate will be led by Harpreet Upal MP.
In April 2023 armed conflict in Sudan broke out between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The outbreak of conflict followed the removal of Omar al-Bashir as president (in office 1989 to 2019). The transitional government, in which Al-Burham served as the president and head of the armed forces and Dagalo his deputy, had been unable to agree on Sudan’s future and a transition to civilian rule.
For more background on the conflict and its origins, see:
- Commons Library Insight, Sudan: the “forgotten” conflict, February 2024
- Lords Library, Civil war in Sudan: is there a path to peace?, September 2024
- Council on Foreign Relations, Civil war in Sudan, April 2025
- UN Human Rights Council, Independent Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, Report of 23 October 2024, pages 17 to 31
The UK Government has raised concerns for the “growing body of evidence of serious atrocities being committed against civilians in Sudan: the escalation of violence; the killing of civilians; the sexual assault of women; and the restriction of humanitarian access” during the conflict.
In January 2025, the Biden Administration said it judged that the RSF and associated militias have committed genocide in Sudan. This followed its conclusion in December 2023 that members of the SAF and RSF had committed war crimes. The US announced a set of sanctions, including against the RSF leader. The RSF has said the assessment of genocide is “inaccurate” and says the accusation may complicate negotiations to end the conflict and the US role of mediator.
In October 2024 the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International-Fact Finding Mission for the Sudan reported that members of the RSF and SAF, and their respective allied militias, “have committed large-scale human rights and international humanitarian law violations, many of which may amount to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity” during the conflict. It reports this has included a “resurgence in sexual violence”, attacks on civilian infrastructure, and access restrictions for humanitarian aid.
The International Criminal Court, which is separate to the UN and is a criminal court that brings cases against individuals, is also investigating the situation in Sudan and in July 2025 its deputy prosecutor said that they had “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur”.
In the Jeddah Declaration of 2023, both RSF and SAF had “affirm[ed] [their] commitment to ensure that civilians are protected at all times” and to “exert all efforts” to ensure “all obligations of International Humanitarian Law are fully disseminated within our ranks”.
The UK Government has also introduced sanctions against groups and organisations participating in the conflict in Sudan on grounds including funding for the RSF and SAF and for committing violations of international humanitarian law. The UK Government says the determination of genocide is a matter for competent courts but will act to prevent atrocities.
Humanitarian situation Overview of needThe UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has projected that in 2025 around 30.4 million people in Sudan will need humanitarian support (around 65% of the population). Of those in need, 51% are children and 24% women. Around 15% have a disability.
UN Women has highlighted specific challenges faced by women, girls and boys, including inequalities in access to food by female-headed households compared to those headed by men, sexual and gender-based violence, and difficulties in accessing maternal and child health services.
A third of the population is displacedThe UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports that in 2024, 14.3 million Sudanese had been displaced, either within the country or in neighbouring states, including Chad, South Sudan, Libya and Egypt. This represented around a third of the population. In 2024, the UN International Organisation on Migration described Sudan as the “world’s largest displacement crisis”.
Health and education services are disruptedThe World Health Organization (WHO) reports extensive damage to health infrastructure, threats to the safety of health workers, disruption to routine immunisation campaigns, and rising disease outbreaks.
The WHO surveillance system for attacks on healthcare reports there have been 174 attacks on healthcare facilities and personnel in Sudan since April 2023. This has led to 1,171 deaths and 362 injuries.
A cholera outbreak was also declared in August 2024, and to March 2025 the outbreak had spread to 12 states, with over 57,100 cases and 1,500 deaths. There is also an ongoing measles outbreak.
The UN Children’s Fund, Unicef, also reports 80% of schools have been closed since April 2023, with many being used as shelters for displaced people.
Famine has been assessed in some partsFamine was declared in Zamzam displacement camp in north Darfur in August 2024. This marks the third official famine determination in the 21st century (the previous two were Somalia in 2011 and South Sudan in 2017).
“Famine” is the highest phase of food insecurity on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) acute food insecurity scale (PDF). Famine is attributed when: 1) at least 20% of households face an extreme lack of food, 2) at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and 3) two people for every 10,000 are dying each day due to starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.
In its projection for December 2024 to May 2025, published in December 2024, the IPC said that famine had been detected in a further ten areas, and there was a risk it would spread to a further 17. It estimated that at least 638,000 people were at the famine level (IPC phase 5) and a total of 24.6 million people were experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above, known as “crisis” and “emergency” levels).
In July 2025 the IPC said that it expects the situation to deteriorate further during the lean season of July to September 2025. This reflects the continuing disruptions to food supply and production, funding shortages, and higher food prices.
Aid access is hindered by the conflict and actorsUNOCHA has reported that humanitarian access across Sudan “remains severely restrained” by fighting, “bureaucratic delays”, and mass displacement. In its most recent assessment, covering May 2025, it said that aid operations were particularly hindered in RSF-controlled areas and some areas such as Darfur and Greater Kordofan were “out of reach”.
In a joint donor statement of October 2024, the UK said that “the two sides’ [SAF and RSF] systematic obstruction of local and international humanitarian efforts is at the root of this famine” and local actors “must” work in partnership with humanitarian agencies and adhere to international humanitarian law to protect civilians and aid workers.
The call for aid access was renewed in a February 2025 meeting of international development ministers and a conference on Sudan, held in London in April 2025. The joint statement in April from donors called on the SAF and RSF to meet their commitments under the 2023 Jeddah Declaration that they both signed. The declaration says both will “allow and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief”.
UK aid to Sudan Trends in UK aid from 2009 to 2023The annual value of UK bilateral aid to Sudan has been variable from 2009 to 2023.
UK aid fell from 2009 to 2015, before rising from £29.3 million in 2025 to £55.6 million in 2019. There was then a small decrease in 2020 (which coincided with overall aid levels falling as the UK economy shrank in the covid-19 pandemic), followed by a much larger decrease in 2021, coinciding with the reduction in aid levels to 0.5% of GNI. The decrease continued in 2022, when it reached £12.5 million, lower than at any time in at least the previous 13 years. In 2023, aid increased again to £35.8 million, its highest level since 2018, after the current conflict began in April 2023.
2023 is the latest calendar year for which final aid spending statistics are available.
These figures exclude multilateral aid – that is, aid given as contributions to the core budgets of multilateral organisations, such as UN agencies. Such organisations may also have spent humanitarian aid in Sudan, but the UK has no control over these allocations. The figures do, however, include “bilateral via multilateral” aid, where the aid is allocated to a specific purpose by the UK but delivered by a multilateral organisation (such as a UN agency).
Most UK humanitarian aid is spent through the Sudan Humanitarian Preparedness and Response (SHPR) programme. This includes aid for addressing malnutrition and providing food assistance, accessing basic water services, and provision of child protection and gender-based violence services. Victims of international humanitarian law violations, displaced people and people with disabilities were among those to receive cash assistance from the International Red Cross under the SHPR programme. The programme prioritises hard-to-reach areas.
Spending plans from 2024/25The UK Government says it spent £226.5 million in the financial year of 2024/25 for Sudan and neighbouring countries. This included an announcement in November 2024 for a further £113 million, additional to the £97 million initially planned for Sudan.
Announcing the new package in November, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said it “doubled the UK’s aid commitment to Sudan and the region this year”. UK aid would support 600,000 people in Sudan and 700,000 in neighbouring countries that have fled the Sudanese conflict.
In his February 2025 announcement that UK aid would be reduced to 0.3% of gross national income from 2027, the Prime Minister said that UK aid to Sudan will be one of the areas of protected spending in 2025/26.
In April 2025 the government announced £120 million of funding at a conference it co-hosted on Sudan. The funding will support over 650,000 Sudanese people, including with food aid and cash assistance.
Country allocations of bilateral FCDO spending for 2025/26 will be published in the department’s annual report, expected on 21 July 2025.
Outlook for global aid from 2025Global aid is expected to fall in 2025, with the UK, France, Germany and United States among those donors planning smaller aid budgets. While it is uncertain how these will affect levels of aid to Sudan, the pause on US aid spending earlier in 2025 reportedly led to the closure of 80% of emergency food kitchens in February.
In March 2025 the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, noted that international reductions “come at a time when the needs in Sudan have never been greater” and risked “end[ing] life-saving humanitarian assistance for millions of women, children and other vulnerable groups across the country”.
The US was the largest aid donor to Sudan in 2023 and 2024. It did not announce an aid pledge at the April 2025 conference. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the United States will still be the largest single donor of humanitarian aid worldwide.