IOM says Sudan's common aid pipeline will run dry by the end of September

The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that the common humanitarian pipeline it runs for Sudan will exhaust current stocks of shelter, sanitation and emergency household kits by the end of September. Warehousing and the logistics that move those kits can be kept open only until December. After that, the agency says, the system that has reached 2.84 million people since July 2023 would have to be rebuilt from scratch.

Director General Amy Pope, speaking from the Port Sudan and Geneva announcement, said the entire humanitarian system in the country could collapse within weeks without new money. "We simply can't turn our back on the people of Sudan when they need us most amid raging conflict, increased displacement and impact of heavy rain," she said. "Without new funding, we won't be able to get help where it's needed most."

The pipeline's reach has shrunk even as need has grown. It assisted more than one million people in 2024 and 804,000 in 2025. In 2026 it has so far delivered emergency shelter and household kits to 330,000 people. IOM wants $15 million to hold the 2026 minimum for twelve months and reach 305,000 people. Twenty-seven million dollars would lift the caseload toward the 2025 level and cover about 570,000 people. Forty-two million dollars would return the pipeline to something closer to 2024.

Sudan's war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023. Aid workers have put the death toll above 200,000. About 8.6 million people remain internally displaced. The World Food Programme has said 19.5 million face crisis levels of food insecurity and that its own Sudan appeal is only about one-third funded. Heavy rain this season has added a second displacement wave on top of the fighting. Tents and plastic sheeting that survive a dry camp often fail when the wadis rise.

The common pipeline exists because dozens of smaller groups cannot each run their own warehouses, customs papers and checkpoint letters. IOM buys and stores the kits. Partners collect them and take them through the Adre corridor from Chad and through other crossings that still open on some days. Drivers carry signed documents to pass the checkpoints. When the warehouse is empty, that paperwork has nothing to move.

Pope's warning landed in a funding climate shaped by large cuts in US foreign assistance over the past year. Other donors have not filled the gap. The dollar figures IOM published are small beside the cost of the war and beside the $5 billion reconstruction talk now coming from other disaster zones. They are large beside the cash actually pledged for Sudanese plastic sheeting this month.

Rebuilding the pipeline after a break would not be a matter of placing a new order. Supply chains, partner lists and storage contracts would have to be re-created while families are already in the open. That is the operational fact behind the phrase "collapse within weeks." The date that now sits on the calendar is 30 September for the kits and December for the warehouses. Donors who intend to keep the line open have those two marks, and the $15 million floor, as the measurable test.