In a crowded neighbourhood in Omdurman, a mother measures out the day’s food with care, dividing a small bowl of sorghum among her children and quietly deciding that her children will eat while she goes hungry. By April 2026, this calculation has become a defining feature of life across Sudan, where three years of conflict have pushed millions into a reality shaped by scarcity, uncertainty, and a single meal daily.
“We are seeing families who have reduced their meals to once a day, sometimes less,” said a field officer with the World Food Programme, describing conditions in conflict-affected areas.
According to Reuters reporting, citing aid agencies’ assessments, millions of Sudanese are now surviving on one meal a day, a clear sign of a crisis that has moved beyond warning signs into acute food insecurity.
The longer the conflict persists, the more Sudan’s food crisis is shifting from a temporary disruption toward structural deterioration. Agricultural production, transport networks, and local markets that once connected rural supply to urban demand are increasingly fragmented by insecurity and displacement.
Agriculture unravels under fire.
The truth is that war has not simply disrupted Sudan’s economy; it has steadily weakened the country’s agricultural systems. Food security monitors report declining cultivation across several agricultural regions disrupted by fighting.
In several conflict-affected areas, shifting territorial control and fragmented military authority have made it increasingly difficult for farmers, traders, and aid agencies to move goods safely between production zones and urban markets.
The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has fractured territorial control across large parts of Sudan, creating competing systems of authority that complicate both commercial activity and humanitarian access.
As frontlines shift, transport corridors linking agricultural regions to major urban markets are frequently disrupted, while aid deliveries often require separate negotiations across contested territories.
According to the World Food Programme, agricultural output has declined sharply in conflict-affected areas, driven by displacement, insecurity, and the weakening of supply networks that once connected farms to local and regional markets.
“Conflict is preventing farmers from planting and harvesting at scale,” the World Food Programme noted in its regional situation updates, warning of cascading production losses.
Farmers who once cultivated staple crops such as sorghum and millet are no longer able to plant, harvest, or transport their produce, while displacement and insecurity continue to undermine the labour networks, transport routes, and market access needed to sustain agricultural recovery.The markets fracture, prices surge.
The effects of agricultural decline are increasingly visible in urban markets, where rising transport costs and disrupted trade routes are pushing staple foods beyond the reach of many households.
As state institutions weaken and commercial routes fragment under the pressure of prolonged conflict, food access is increasingly shaped not only by availability but by insecurity, territorial division, and restricted transport routes. The crisis is no longer temporary and is increasingly disrupting the systems that keep food moving across the country.
“Even when food is available, many families simply cannot afford it,” said a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund, highlighting the widening affordability gap.
Reuters has documented how fragmented trade routes, rising fuel costs, and transport disruptions are increasing the cost of moving goods across Sudan, placing staple foods beyond the reach of many urban households.
As markets weaken, displacement is increasingly driven not only by violence but by the collapse of economic access to food.
As food becomes persistently unaffordable across urban and conflict-affected areas, more families are being forced to leave their homes in search of safer conditions, functioning markets, and humanitarian assistance.
Displacement and access to food
Displacement has intensified these pressures, reshaping both the geography and experience of hunger. According to UN estimates, more than 14 million people have been forced from their homes, many settling in camps or informal communities where food access depends heavily on relief support or overstretched host communities.
Many displacement sites are characterised by overcrowding, limited infrastructure, and severe shortages of food, clean water, and shelter, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.
“We don’t have houses to protect us from the rain, and we don’t have tarps,” mother-of-four Huda Ali told Reuters from temporary shelters in Darfur. “We have to wait for the rain to stop for the children to sleep.”
In many of these camps, food access remains irregular, shaped by long waiting times and uncertain supply deliveries.
These worsening conditions have placed growing pressure on humanitarian organisations attempting to sustain food distribution and emergency medical support across conflict-affected regions.
Humanitarian response under constraint
Relief operations have continued across conflict-affected areas, though aid delivery is becoming increasingly difficult under deteriorating security conditions.
The World Food Programme continues to deliver food assistance where access is possible, while Médecins Sans Frontières provides critical medical care, including treatment for severe malnutrition.
“The scale of needs is unprecedented, but access constraints are limiting how much assistance we can deliver,” the World Food Programme said in recent updates.
Humanitarian needs continue to outpace available aid capacity. The limitations of aid delivery are not driven solely by funding shortages but also by the fragmentation of transport corridors, shifting front lines, administrative breakdowns, and the increasing difficulty of sustaining large-scale operations across contested territory.
Aid convoys face security risks, restricted movement corridors, and the need for negotiated access across fragmented territories, all of which slow deliveries and leave many communities difficult to reach.
The Economics of Hunger
The persistence of food insecurity is closely tied to worsening economic instability. Sudan’s markets are increasingly defined by fragmentation, inflation, and shortages of accessible cash. Reports by Reuters point to rising food prices driven by supply shortages and disrupted trade flows.
Aid organisations and economic analysts warn that inflation and market instability are steadily eroding household purchasing power. Reuters reporting from Darfur documented residents resorting to eating animal feed and reducing meals sharply as food prices continue to rise under siege conditions.
The weakening of Sudan’s banking system is increasingly limiting not only commercial activity but also the ability of households and aid agencies to function within already fractured local economies.
“Before the fighting, we could store grain for weeks,” said Ibrahim, a trader displaced from El Fasher. “Now most families buy only enough food for a single day.”
In several regions, traders and transporters increasingly navigate informal checkpoint systems controlled by competing armed actors, raising transport costs and slowing the movement of staple goods.
Analysts warn that prolonged conflict is transforming scarcity itself into part of Sudan’s wartime economy, with fuel access, transport routes, and territorial control increasingly shaping who can afford food and who cannot.
As food prices rise and household purchasing power weakens, many families are increasingly relying on short-term survival strategies to cope with worsening food insecurity.
Survival at a cost
Faced with these constraints, civilians are adopting coping strategies that reflect both resilience and deepening economic strain. Médecins Sans Frontières and other humanitarian organisations report that families are increasingly selling productive assets, reducing meals, and withdrawing children from school to cope with worsening food insecurity.
“Families are being forced to choose between immediate survival and preserving the resources that sustain their livelihoods,” Médecins Sans Frontières noted in its field assessments.
While these measures may ease short-term pressure, they steadily erode household stability, weaken future earning capacity, and deepen vulnerability to prolonged food insecurity.
Pathways to Resilience
The reconstruction of Sudan’s food system will require approaches that account for both ongoing instability and long-term resilience. The World Food Programme has emphasised the importance of restoring local food production systems alongside emergency aid.
In several displacement-affected communities, local food kitchens supported by volunteers and humanitarian groups have become an important survival mechanism for families unable to afford market prices. Aid organisations have also supported small-scale seed distribution programmes aimed at helping farmers resume limited cultivation.
Across some rural areas, informal farming cooperatives and community-managed grain storage systems are helping households preserve harvests and reduce dependence on disrupted supply routes. While these efforts remain limited compared to the scale of the crisis, they reflect attempts by communities to sustain food access despite prolonged instability.
Prolonged conflict not only interrupts food access temporarily; it gradually reshapes how communities produce, store, distribute, and prioritise food, often leaving communities less able to recover even after active fighting declines.
Proposals for protected agricultural corridors, where cultivation and transport are shielded from conflict, have also emerged in humanitarian policy discussions.
The Cost of Prolonged Hunger
The long-term consequences of sustained hunger are already taking shape, particularly among children. “Malnutrition at this scale will have lifelong consequences for children’s growth and development,” warned the United Nations Children’s Fund.
A generation raised under conditions of chronic food deprivation carries the imprint of that experience into adulthood. Back in Omdurman, the mother’s daily calculation continues, repeated across millions of households as Sudan’s prolonged conflict transforms hunger from a temporary emergency into a structural condition shaping the country’s future stability and recovery.
