Residents receive aid from World Food Programme (WFP) at Al-Omada neighbourhood of Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum on March 11, 2026. EBRAHIM HAMID / AFP
Around seven in 10 people in Sudan are now living in poverty, a senior United Nations official said on Tuesday, April 14, nearly twice as many as before the war between the army and paramilitary forces broke out three years ago. "Before the war, we were probably looking (at) around 38% of people living in poverty, and now we are estimating about 70%," said the UN Development Programme's Sudan representative Luca Renda, as the agency released a new report on poverty timed to coincide with the anniversary of the start of the war.
The figures Renda cited were based on a poverty line of about $4 a day, while at least a quarter of the population is believed to be surviving on less than half that, he said. Conditions are particularly severe in some of the worst-affected areas, including parts of southern Kordofan, now the war's main battleground, and North Darfur, where as many as 70 to 75% of people are living in deprivation, Renda added.
Now in its fourth year, the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 11 million, and thrust several areas into hunger and famine.
