Sudan's famine risk is growing because an El Niño-driven drought — the driest peak rainy season in more than three decades — is destroying harvests and livestock in a country already in its fourth year of civil war, the United Nations-backed global hunger monitor, the IPC, warned in an October 12 alert reported by Reuters on Friday. "The risk of famine is growing in many conflict-affected areas of Sudan, with the impact of El Niño-induced drought compounding already dire conditions," the IPC wrote. Pockets of famine have already emerged during more than three years of conflict, mainly in areas under siege, and the drought is now expected to push hunger numbers up just as the November-December harvest — which aid agencies had hoped would bring relief — comes in short.
How dry was the 2026 rainy season?
Historically dry, on the satellite record. Rainfall in July to September, the peak rainy season, was the lowest in more than three decades across the country, United States Geological Survey (USGS) data shows. In North Darfur state in the west it was the lowest since 1984 — the same year a famine devastated Sudan and Ethiopia. In North Kordofan state in the centre it was the lowest since 1990, and in Gedaref state in the southeast the lowest since 1991. The parched conditions are hurting crops and livestock across the southern region where rain-fed agriculture produces much of Sudan's food, according to UN officials and aid experts, along with more than two dozen farmers interviewed by Reuters. Temperatures compounded the damage: in Gedaref, temperatures ranged between 7 and 9 degrees above the historic average for October 20, the Reuters Climate Monitor showed.
What are farmers and traders seeing?
Failed crops and thinning herds, in the accounts Reuters gathered. In North Kordofan, Mariam Omar digs weeds from between crops near Um Ruwaba that should be close to harvest but are shrivelled in dry, sandy soil: "This year is terrible," she said. Mohamed Abdelrahman, a farmer with about 420 hectares in the Um Rawaba area who also finances smallholders as a sesame trader, estimated about 40 percent of land in the area would have no harvest, and told Reuters many farmers displaced by war were returning to drought-stricken land. At the livestock market in El Obeid, North Kordofan's capital, the ribs of cows protrude through their hides. "Usually at this time the cattle are fat and everyone is making a profit. But now, with this autumn's scarcity, the cattle became skinny," trader Sirajaldeen Abdellateef said, counting Sudanese pounds that have been rapidly losing value, stoking inflation. Gedaref state matters most for the national food supply: it had been crucial to Sudan's food supply during the war because it escaped the fighting — but it has not escaped the drought. "Even if we get rain going forward, I'll only have about 25 percent of last year's crop," said Emad Kabsoor, who runs several large farms covering 14,700 hectares.
How many people will go hungry?
More than the already severe baseline, on the agencies' own forecasts. The IPC said in June that 5.1 million people in Sudan faced severe hunger; it is currently updating the numbers, which had been expected to fall once harvesting started in November and December, helped by a lull in fighting in some areas — but the drought is now expected to push them up instead. The UN World Food Programme forecasts an additional 350,000 people will experience severe hunger by the end of 2026, rising to 1.2 million more by August 2027, the WFP's head of programme for Sudan, Samuel Clendon, told Reuters in October, citing figures shared with donors but not publicised widely. The worst-hit areas are Darfur and the Kordofan region. In Tawila, a sprawling Darfur camp of about 700,000 people displaced by war, rations had been halved, WFP acting executive director Carl Skau said, even as aid workers said 9,000 more people arrived between the start of September and mid-October. Adam Rojal, spokesman for the General Coordination of IDPs and Refugee Camps in Sudan, said hunger rather than war was now driving people from their homes: "It's no longer just about bullets."
Can the aid system respond, and what do the parties say?
The money is not there on current budgets. The WFP has focused on delivering food to the 5 million most needy people, but says it cannot reach all of them, and for those it can reach it has cut rations to stretch limited resources. As of October 17 the WFP had $276 million to fund its Sudan operation — less than half of last year's budget — and says it needs an extra $134 million to tackle hunger caused by drought. The decline of both aid and harvests at once is a "recipe for disaster," Skau told Reuters in Cairo after a trip to Darfur. Sudan's government has played down the threat: Agriculture Minister Esmat Qureshi told an October 8 news conference in Khartoum that this year's harvest would be lower but "not significantly less than last year's." The head of the RSF's humanitarian aid authority, Abdelrahman Ismail, told Reuters: "We have made efforts to coordinate and invite an early response, and we believe we can do more if the necessary resources and capacity are provided." Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly accused both government troops and the RSF of blocking or hindering aid during the conflict, which both sides deny. The IPC declared pockets of famine in Sudan in 2024 and 2025, including in al-Fashir, where up to a quarter of a million people were under RSF siege for a year and a half before the city fell. This site reported the IPC's October 12 alert itself on October 13; Reuters' reporting adds the season's rainfall records, the WFP's forward forecasts and funding position, and the first detailed farmer-level accounts of the failed harvest. Famine expert Alex De Waal told Reuters the situation today is in most respects much worse than 1984 because of the conflict — in the 1980s the world mobilised aid resources, while international aid budgets have now been cut back.
This report is drawn from Reuters' October 23 report, opened and read in full on reuters.com, including the IPC's October 12 alert, USGS rainfall data, WFP forecasts and funding figures given to Reuters, and the named farmers, traders and officials Reuters interviewed. The hunger figures are the IPC's and WFP's own, attributed as such; the Sudanese government's and the RSF authority's positions are reported in their own words as carried by Reuters.
