United Nations says more than 3 million Sudan children facing acute malnutrition

Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed assessment. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

An estimated 3.2 million children under the age of five are expected to face acute malnutrition this year in war-torn Sudan, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Of this number, around 7,72,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition,” Eva Hinds, UNICEF Sudan’s Head of Advocacy and Communication, said late on Thursday (January 9, 2025).

Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed assessment.

Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands and, according to the United Nations, uprooting 12 million in the world’s largest displacement crisis.

Confirming that 3.2 million children are currently expected to face acute malnutrition, Ms. Hinds said “the number of severely malnourished children increased from an estimated 7,30,000 in 2024 to over 7,70,000 in 2025.”

The IPC expects famine to expand to five more parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region by May — a vast area that has seen some of the conflict’s worst violence. A further 17 areas in western and central Sudan are also at risk of famine, it said.

“Without immediate, unhindered humanitarian access facilitating a significant scale-up of a multisectoral response, malnutrition is likely to increase in these areas,” Ms. Hinds warned.

Sudan’s Army-aligned government strongly rejected the IPC findings, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.

In October 2024, experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council accused both sides of using “starvation tactics”.

On Tuesday (January 7, 2025), the United States determined that the RSF had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader.

Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to IPC, which said: “Only a ceasefire can reduce the risk of famine spreading further”.