In North Darfur, hundreds of thousands of displaced people are trying to survive in camps where markets are broken, clinics are bare, and roads are too dangerous for aid convoys. The global system that measures hunger has now called it what it is. The Famine Review Committee confirmed famine in five places in Sudan, including Zamzam, Abu Shouk, and Al Salam camps in North Darfur, and in parts of the Western Nuba Mountains. Analysts warned that five more locations in North Darfur were likely to tip into famine by May 2025 if access did not improve. IPCInfoReliefWebWorld Food Program USA

Those designations are not semantics. They rest on evidence of starvation deaths, extreme malnutrition, and a collapse of basic access to food or income. Sudan’s case is driven less by a lack of food in the abstract and more by the impossibility of reaching it. Fighting blocks highways. Armed groups tax or loot cargo. Urban warfare and checkpoint harassment make travel lethal. Even when food reaches a town, prices lock people out. A joint global outlook noted that staple sorghum and millet hit record highs in late 2024, while half the country slid into crisis or worse. By early 2025, at least 0.8 million people were in Catastrophe, the IPC’s term for households facing starvation. Food Security Information Network (FSIN)

The human geography of this war multiplies the risk. More than eleven million people are displaced inside Sudan, and hundreds of thousands more have fled over the borders. In camps around El Fasher, crowded shelters and poor water drive disease, which worsens malnutrition and pushes mortality above famine thresholds faster. Health services that could break that cycle have been attacked, looted, or cut off. When September rains turn roads to mud, access shrinks again. The famine review in December 2024 was blunt: without safe corridors and sustained deliveries, famine would spread. Food Security Information Network (FSIN)IPCInfo

There is also a political fight over the very act of calling this a famine. In December 2024, the de facto authorities rejected the famine findings and withdrew from cooperation with the IPC system. UN human rights experts later underlined that the famine identification stood, and that more areas were likely to tip into famine between December 2024 and May 2025 unless access opened. The withdrawal did not change the data. It only made it harder to collect. OHCHRBMJ Blogs

For families in the confirmed famine areas, the constraints look the same week after week. Markets are thin or non-functional. Prices are far beyond reach for those who lost wages, livestock, or fields. Humanitarian kitchens that once served hot meals have shut down as funding and supplies dwindled. Clinics struggle to treat severe wasting in children when stocks of therapeutic foods and antibiotics run out. None of this corrects itself without access. OHCHR

Zoom out to the country scale and the picture matches the camps. By mid-2025, humanitarian analysts still described half of Sudan’s population facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with disease and displacement compounding the shock. A regional early-warning statement at the start of the year listed ten areas projected to face famine through May 2025 and another seventeen at risk. The core variable in those projections was not rainfall. It was whether trucks and health teams could move without being shot at, looted, or turned back. icpac.netFood Security Portal

None of this means famine is inevitable everywhere. It means famine is being created by choices. Where local ceasefires and negotiated corridors hold, aid moves, prices ease, and child wasting falls. Where front lines harden and taxation or looting intensifies, the opposite happens. The technical language of the IPC can feel distant, but it is simply a way to count deaths, wasting, and access in a war zone. In Sudan, the counts met the bar for famine in multiple places, and the projections say more will follow unless access changes. IPCInfoReliefWeb

What to watch next

• Do convoys reach the named famine locations regularly for several weeks, not just once for the cameras. If they do, prices and admissions for severe acute malnutrition should improve within a month. If they do not, mortality rises. IPCInfo

• Are cross-line permissions and corridor security negotiated for the projected famine areas in North Darfur, especially Um Kadadah, Melit, El Fasher, At Tawisha, and Al Lait. If not, the December projections will become reality. ReliefWebWorld Food Program USA

• Does funding reopen closed community kitchens and restock clinics with therapeutic foods and basic antibiotics. UN experts warned in April that closures were already increasing risk. OHCHR

Sources

• IPC Famine Review Committee report on Sudan, December 2024, confirming famine in five areas with projections through May 2025. IPCInfo

• ReliefWeb summary of the FRC conclusions and projected famine expansion in North Darfur. ReliefWeb

• Global Report on Food Crises 2025 country brief for Sudan, including numbers in Catastrophe and record staple prices. Food Security Information Network (FSIN)

• ICPAC/FSNWG regional statement, January 2025, listing ten areas projected to face famine and seventeen at risk. icpac.net

• UN human rights experts’ press release, April 2025, reiterating that the FRC confirmed famine in five areas and warning of more without access; notes on kitchen closures and price spikes. OHCHR

Sudan’s famine is about access, not just food

The IPC’s Famine Review Committee confirmed famine in multiple areas and projected more through May 2025. Half the country is in crisis or worse. The angle: how blocked markets, insecurity, and shattered health systems make “access” the real variable, not just food.