Sudan is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 20 million people in need of urgent humanitarian response.

After more than 1,000 days of conflict, the children of Sudan are facing severe food shortages, limited or no access to healthcare, and many are over two years behind in school. Shifting conflict lines create additional food scarcity: farmers cannot plant and harvest crops when they are repeatedly displaced every few months. Latest data has found catastrophic, famine-like conditions in two additional areas of western Sudan, on top of an already severe hunger crisis sweeping the entire country. 

One of our colleagues, Stephanie, took a trip to Sudan to speak with children and families about their experiences. Below, she shares more about what she saw and heard. 

During a two week trip, I was able to visit several Save the Children health facilities, a recently-restored water point, and a major Emergency Response Room in Khartoum. 

In the health facilities, we saw women access prenatal care, children evaluated for malnutrition, and infants receive lifesaving vaccines. The senior doctor in one facility explained that the most common cases in their area are related to malaria, cholera, and other preventable diseases. Each week, Save the Children-supported health facilities vaccinate dozens of children, evaluating many for malnutrition and getting them the support they need to thrive. Save the Children’s support enables access to healthcare, an especially critical resource given that fewer than 25% of health facilities in Sudan are operational.  

At another site we visited, Save the Children had recently transitioned a neighborhood water point from generator-powered to a solar setup – eliminating the need for costly, and often inaccessible, fuel – to ensure that water reached the 8,000 households the water tank served. Local community leader Mr. Ahmed is very proud of the impact this water tank has had in his neighborhood. Since conflict erupted in 2023, most of his community had fled the city to escape the fighting. Even after conflict in Khartoum ceased around May 2025, people were reluctant to return to their homes because of the lack of infrastructural support: with limited access to fuel, the generator couldn’t function consistently to pump water to houses, apartments, schools, and health facilities. As Mr. Ahmed* explained, “water is life”: since this system was converted to solar power, water has consistently flowed, enabling families to return home, schools to reopen, and the neighborhood health facility to function for the first time in two and a half years.  

The part of the trip that moved me the most, however, was our visit to the very first Emergency Response Room (ERR) in Sudan. Save the Children partners with ERRs to help strengthen locally led responses and enable faster, culturally appropriate aid delivery. ERRs function very similarly to soup kitchens in the United States: once per day, anyone in need of food can show up, bring a container, and receive a hot meal. While here in the US, that might be soup and a sandwich, on the day we visited, the ladies in charge were preparing a fish curry and tons of rice. 

We were introduced to Ms. Samia*, the woman who started it all: she explained that she had owned a restaurant in Khartoum for decades. When thousands of families were displaced by the start of conflict in 2023, she noticed a significant increase in children begging outside her restaurant. As more and more people began to sleep in the streets near her home, she quickly realized that there was a huge need for basic necessities and, as someone who already owned and operated a restaurant, she had the resources to take action: “We saw the needs in our community… and we felt a responsibility to help.” 

When we arrived, dozens of women, with kids in tow, had been waiting in line since 6am for food to be dished out around 10am. “Many of these families have traveled over 1,000 km [about 620 miles] from El Fasher in North Darfur. Most are headed by women. The men have been killed or seriously injured, and now the women are struggling to support their families. Many are doing manual labor or selling tea on the streets while their children are begging,” Ms. Samia said. Several of them shared their stories with me, including one woman from Darfur who, with her five children, fled El Fasher before the city fell in October 2025. After walking 500 miles to reach the nearest transportation to Khartoum, only four of her children survived. 

Now, together with her daughter Abeer*, Ms. Samia* feeds 300-400 families every single day – often the only meal they will eat each day. This kitchen plays a critical role in emergency response, and is supported by Save the Children, but Abeer and Ms. Samia are clear that food aid alone is not enough. Together, they hope to expand beyond daily meals towards more sustainable, long-term forms of support, including a space for health services and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS). 

The situation in Sudan is extremely dire, and these stories deserve to be more than just headlines. The people of Sudan need a humanitarian ceasefire and long-lasting peace. The international community must not look away. 

Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and is currently supporting children and their families across Sudan providing health, nutrition, education, child protection and food security and livelihoods support.