In Sudan, 15.4 million displaced people need shelter, only 10% helped

About 15.4 million people displaced by the war in Sudan need emergency shelter and basic household items, but only about 10% of them can be helped for lack of funding, according to a joint statement by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) published on Friday and reported by Reuters.

To date, 936,000 people have received assistance, leaving a considerable gap between needs and available resources, the two agencies say. About 8.6 million people remain displaced within the country, while more than 4.6 million have crossed borders, and more than 5.2 million have returned to their areas of origin, where they often find destroyed housing, infrastructure and basic services.

Speaking from Khartoum at a UN press briefing in Geneva, IOM's head in Sudan, Mohamed Refaat, said the agency was struggling to maintain its operations as resources run out. "This year alone, IOM was able to distribute more than 40,000 tonnes, but our warehouses are now completely empty," he said. He added that the agencies had already scaled back their ambitions: "We decided to serve one person in ten. But even on that tenth, we could only reach 900,000 people with what we had."

Sudan remains the world's largest displacement crisis, more than three years after the war broke out in 2023, when the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force, clashed notably over the integration of their fighters into a planned transition to civilian power. The agencies are calling for urgent funding to replenish emergency stocks.

The alert comes after several signs of deteriorating aid in Sudan, including the UN's announcement of food aid running out by early 2027 on 15 October, and the blockage of care in the Blue Nile region revealed on 30 October.