With war grinding through its second year and food supplies collapsing, millions of Sudanese are surviving on weeds, wild plants, and even coal to ease their hunger, aid workers say.
In displacement camps like Wad Almajzoub in Gezira state, families boil foraged greens in salted water — often their only meal of the day. Some have resorted to peanut husks normally fed to livestock. “We’ve received reports of people eating grass, people eating leaves,” said Leni Kinzli, Sudan spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP).
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, 24.6 million people — nearly half the country’s population — now face acute food insecurity, making Sudan home to the world’s largest hunger crisis.
Sudan descended into war in April 2023, when power struggles between General al-Burhan’s army (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) exploded into full-blown fighting in Khartoum. Since then, over 20,000 people have been killed, and nearly 13 million displaced, according to aid agencies.
Humanitarian access has been severed across key regions, including Kordofan, the Nuba Mountains, and Darfur. In Zamzam camp near El Fasher, where famine is rampant and violence surging, aid workers say elderly men, pregnant women, and children have died of starvation and untreated illness. In North Darfur, some people have resorted to sucking on charcoal to suppress hunger.
Prices have spiraled out of reach: a pound of sugar now costs 20,000 Sudanese pounds ($33); a single bar of soap is $17. Basic items have vanished from markets entirely.
Despite mounting evidence, Sudan’s SAF-junta agriculture minister denied famine was present, saying shortages were limited to areas held by the RSF. But the WFP warns that 17 locations — including parts of Gezira, Khartoum, and most of Darfur — are at high risk of famine.
Each month, WFP reaches around 4 million people with aid — including 1.7 million in areas already facing or nearing famine.
The conflict is further complicated by a second front: SAF is also fighting the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, which has ties to the RSF and controls areas in the south and east. The fighting has destroyed farmland, forced aid groups to withdraw, and made access to clean water and medicine nearly impossible.
In El Serif camp near Nyala in South Darfur, civic leader Abdalrahman Idris said nearly 49,000 displaced people are currently sheltering there, with thousands more arriving from Khartoum in recent weeks.
The devastation at Zamzam camp, once a key hub for aid distribution, has worsened in recent days following a wave of attacks. An aid worker with the Emergency Response Rooms, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisals, said he had been forced to flee.
“This isn’t just hunger,” he said. “It’s starvation, it’s collapse — and no one is coming.”
