4 minWorld
Sudan War Shifts Toward Kordofan as Hunger Persists
New violence around El Obeid and South Kordofan is colliding with mass hunger, damaged health care and one of the world’s largest displacement crises.
Sudan’s war is entering another dangerous phase, with Kordofan increasingly carrying the military and humanitarian pressure that had previously been concentrated elsewhere. The shift does not mean violence has ended in Darfur or that the national emergency is easing. It means new front lines are colliding with an already weakened aid system.
The World Food Programme has called El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, a new epicenter of displacement and hunger. Fighting, drone strikes and insecurity have restricted humanitarian movements across the region. On Aug. 30, an aerial attack outside Dilling in South Kordofan struck two clearly marked WFP trucks bound for Kadugli. The attack destroyed more than 50 metric tons of food, enough to assist 5,800 people for a month. WFP said it has recorded eight aerial attacks this year that damaged its premises or disrupted operations.
The national need remains vast. UNICEF estimates that 33.7 million people require humanitarian assistance in 2026, including 17.3 million children. Around 19.5 million people faced acute food insecurity at Crisis level or worse earlier this year. For the June-to-September lean season, analysts projected that as many as 200,000 people could be in Catastrophe conditions. Famine risk was identified in 14 areas through September and expected to persist in 13 through the harvest period into January 2027.
Malnutrition is one of the most immediate threats. WFP estimates 825,000 children younger than 5 could suffer severe acute malnutrition in 2026. UNICEF’s July programs screened 1.43 million children for acute malnutrition and admitted 82,300 children with severe acute malnutrition for treatment in a single month, illustrating both the size of the need and the scale of the response.
Displacement figures show a more complicated trend. IOM estimated 8.62 million internally displaced people in July, down about 26 percent from the peak, while nearly 4.93 million people had returned to their areas of origin. UNHCR’s separate portal, which uses a narrower conflict-linked internal-displacement category and also counts people forced across borders, recorded more than 11.29 million forcibly displaced people overall by Aug. 24. The decline in one displacement measure therefore does not amount to the end of the crisis.
Children remain exposed even where families are not moving. UNICEF reported at least 330 children killed or injured in the first half of 2026, with Darfur and Kordofan recording the highest child casualty levels. By late July, at least 23 children were reported killed and 25 injured in North Kordofan over roughly two months of intensified fighting around El Obeid.
Sudan’s health system is also deeply compromised. WHO said in April that 37 percent of health facilities were nonfunctional and about 21 million people lacked needed health services. WHO had verified 217 attacks on health care since April 2023, associated with 2,052 deaths and 810 injuries. A cholera vaccination campaign launched in early September in parts of Darfur and West Kordofan aimed to protect about 928,000 people.
Aid agencies continue to operate across all 18 states. WFP says it reaches more than 4 million people each month, including hundreds of thousands in Kordofan. But access and money remain limiting factors. UNICEF had a 63 percent funding gap in its 2026 appeal at the end of July.
The next phase of Sudan’s war will be measured not only by control of towns but by whether food trucks can move, hospitals can stay open and families can return without being displaced again. Kordofan is now where many of those tests are converging.
