FEWS NET keeps a famine warning on seven patches of Darfur and Kordofan through January

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, in an outlook covering August 2026 to January 2027, says 22.0 to 22.99 million people in Sudan will need food aid through September. Emergency (IPC Phase 4) conditions run across much of Greater Darfur, Greater Kordofan and Blue Nile. Some households are already in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in Um Baru, Kernoi and At-Tiné in North Darfur; in Dilling and Kadugli and the western Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan; around El-Obeid in North Kordofan; and among displaced groups in Darfur and Kordofan.

The warning that matters for the next four months is this: harvest time will not rescue the worst belts. Fighting has kept farmers off land. El Niño has cut rain and raised heat. Along active front lines, FEWS NET expects the harvest to be marginal at best. Emergency outcomes, and pockets of Catastrophe, are therefore projected to last from October into January, the months that in a normal year fill sacks.

There is a credible risk of Famine (IPC Phase 5) through January in seven areas of northwestern and central North Darfur and in Dilling, Kadugli and nearby rural South Kordofan. Acute malnutrition in some of those places already sits near or above the Extremely Critical mark of 30 percent global acute malnutrition. If sieges close the roads again and the harvest fails, the service says deaths from hunger would cross the famine line.

Aid that reaches one in five

Food assistance is blunting the worst outcomes in a short list of localities: the three Jebel Marrahs, Mukjar and Um Dukhun in Central Darfur; Tawila, At-Taweisha, Al-Lait and Al-Koma in North Darfur; As-Sunta in South Darfur; Delami in South Kordofan; plus a handful of sites in Blue Nile, Kassala and Gedaref. Less than 20 percent of the people FEWS NET counts as in need are being reached. Plans that mention 4.9 million targets are, the service says, unlikely to be met in full.

The UN system has used nearby numbers all year. A May statement put 19.5 million Sudanese in acute food insecurity and 135,000 in catastrophic conditions across 14 areas of Darfur and South Kordofan. FAO on 3 September again named 14 areas at risk of famine. Unicef has warned that 825,000 children under five could die from severe acute malnutrition in 2026, a 25 percent rise on pre-war levels. The 2026 humanitarian plan counted 28.9 million people in need of food or livelihood support.

East and west are not the same country

In calmer eastern states, even a below-average harvest and farm wages should ease the gap and hold many households at Stressed (IPC Phase 2). In the west, drones, roadblocks and empty skies over fields point the other way. Al Jazeera's comparison of Sentinel-2 images from 3 September 2025 and 3 September 2026 showed a wide fade in green cover around al-Freijab in Gezira, one of the country's grain belts. FAO had already flagged rainfall 20 to 30 percent below the long average in Sennar and Gedaref, with drought on 40 to 70 percent of planted land there.

Sudan Tribune reported hunger deaths in Jebel Marra. That local count sits inside the larger FEWS NET map rather than replacing it. The map's hard claim is seasonal and specific: the harvest will not arrive as food in the places that need it most, and seven named patches can still fall into famine if the war closes the last roads before January.