Sudan war enters fourth year as humanitarian crisis deepens

Sudan’s war entered its fourth year with a scale of human need that UN agencies say is unmatched anywhere else in the world. In 2026, 33.7 million people need humanitarian assistance, 20.4 million have been targeted for aid and 14 million are urgently prioritized, a measure of how deeply the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has shattered daily life across the country.

The violence that began in April 2023 has spread from Khartoum into Darfur, Kordofan and beyond, while the global response has lagged far behind the suffering. The United Nations has called Sudan an “abandoned crisis” as the war enters its fourth year on April 15, 2026, a blunt description of a conflict that has been allowed to grind on while civilians absorb the cost in displacement, hunger and trauma.

Health care has been hit with particular force. The World Health Organization has verified 214 attacks on health care in Sudan since the war began, causing 2,042 deaths and 785 injuries. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, WHO verified 13 attacks that killed 184 people and injured 295. The toll has rippled through hospitals, clinics and emergency rooms already stripped of supplies, power and staff.

Children are bearing a brutal share of the damage. UNICEF says at least 245 child casualties were recorded in Sudan in the first 90 days of 2026, and drone attacks accounted for nearly 80% of the killings and injuries this year so far. The UN has also verified more than 5,700 grave violations against children since the war began, affecting at least 5,100 children. Schools, homes and neighborhoods have become recurring targets of a war that has erased any sense of safety.

Food insecurity has hardened into famine in parts of the country. The IPC Global Initiative has confirmed famine in El Fasher in North Darfur and Kadugli in South Kordofan. Across Sudan, 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, including 6.3 million in the most severe emergency category, underscoring how war, displacement and market collapse have combined to push millions toward starvation.

The displacement figure continues to rise as well. IOM data showed about 9.1 million internally displaced people in Sudan as of February 2026, while UNHCR says the wider crisis has produced 15.3 million forcibly displaced people and returnees across the region. With hospitals attacked, food systems broken and civilians uprooted again and again, Sudan’s crisis has become not only a war without relief, but a measure of the world’s failure to keep watch.