What the bread queues show
The latest bread reports come from Omdurman and the wider Khartoum area, with bakers in Gezira and North Kordofan describing the same pressure. They do not come from el-Fasher, which has been in RSF hands since October 2025. Khartoum’s bakers’ association says buyers now get about half the bread they used to for the same money. Bakers blame flour mills for ignoring price controls, even after intervention by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and report that fuel shortages have disrupted transport.
That matters because Omdurman is in army-held territory. Hunger there is not the product of a siege. It comes from a war economy of costly inputs, scarce fuel and weak enforcement, which is a harder problem to fix by opening a road.
Where famine has been declared and where it has not
The RSF took el-Fasher in late October 2025 after an 18-month siege. The following month the IPC, the UN-backed hunger monitor, confirmed famine in el-Fasher and in Kadugli in South Kordofan. Its May 2026 analysis found no area currently classified in Famine, and I would not read that as good news. It still counted about 135,000 people in Catastrophe and named 14 hotspots across Darfur and South Kordofan at risk of famine. The IPC has also said there is too little survey data for a full analysis now, so the latest warning rests on trends and projections.
That gap is the story. Famine cannot be declared where nobody can measure, and measurement needs access. Sudan’s foreign ministry says its reserves will meet needs. The numbers it disputes are 19.5 million people in acute food insecurity, about 41 percent of the population, and a possible 825,000 children with severe acute malnutrition.
Hospitals under fire from every side
The claim that paramilitary forces are targeting hospitals is true but incomplete. The WHO had verified 213 attacks on health care and 2,036 deaths by March this year, and it does not assign blame. The RSF has been accused of striking Al-Jabalain hospital in White Nile State in April, where 10 people died including seven medical staff, and of wrecking the hospital at Sodari in North Kordofan. A UN rights office report says an alleged RSF strike on 11 October put Um Darfa hospital in Blue Nile out of service. Yet the WHO verified the 20 March attack on El-Daein hospital in East Darfur, which killed 64 people, and Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers attributed it to an army drone. UN rights chief Volker Turk attributes October’s drone strikes on homes, markets and hospitals to both sides.
What would change it
Three things matter most. The first is money. The World Food Programme is cutting 800,000 people from emergency assistance until year end, most recipients get half rations, and the UN says less than half of this year’s appeal is funded. The second is a truce. The US-backed Quad plan of three months of humanitarian truce followed by a political process has been accepted by the RSF, while the army has set conditions. The third is plain governance. Mills that ignore price controls and a government that disputes the hunger figures leave families with little recourse.
Famine is a technical threshold and Sudan can cross it unseen. The practical test is whether trucks reach Darfur and Kordofan, and whether anyone is counting when they do.
Written by:
*Sesona Mdlokovana
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Africa Specialist
**The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL.
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