ISTANBUL

Over 30 million people are in dire need of urgent humanitarian assistance in Sudan amid a raging conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), four UN agencies said Thursday.

“Sudan is facing one of the world’s most severe emergencies, with more than 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including over 9.6 million internally displaced people and nearly 15 million children,” the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), UNICEF, and the World Food Program (WFP) said in a joint statement.

Nearly 2.6 million people returned to their homes after a relative calm prevailed over the region following the cessation of clashes in the capital Khartoum and some other regions. However, most homes, neighborhoods, and essential services were mainly damaged or destroyed during the conflict.

“Across Sudan, cholera, dengue, and malaria are spreading, making it even more urgent to invest in clean water, healthcare, and other essential services so that people can truly start over,” said Ugochi Daniels, IOM Deputy Director General for Operations.

Education was among the fields hardest hit by three years of war in Sudan, as 14 out of 17 million school-aged children are currently out of school, according to UN estimates.

The UN agencies warned that thousands of people, including children, are at imminent risk of death as the hunger reached catastrophic levels. Famine was declared in some parts of Sudan last year.

They said there is a higher need for humanitarian assistance in the Darfur and Kordofan states in western and central Sudan, where “communities are increasingly isolated, and the collapse of essential services is leaving millions vulnerable.”

More than 260,000 people, 130,000 of whom are children, have been isolated under a siege imposed by the RSF on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, for more than 16 months, and deprived of access to food, water, and medical care.

“Reports of killings, sexual violence, and forced recruitment are mounting daily,” they said.

The Sudanese army and the RSF have been fighting a war since April 2023 that has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 14 million, according to the UN and local authorities. Research from US universities, however, estimates the death toll at around 130,000.