Yes, Sudan's Conflict Has Pushed Around 28 Million People Into Acute Food Insecurity — Here's What the Evidence Shows

The claim is true. Sudan's civil war, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, has driven food insecurity to catastrophic levels. The figure of 28 million people facing acute hunger is not an exaggeration — it is backed by some of the most rigorous food security monitoring systems in the world.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — the global standard for measuring hunger crises — found that roughly 25.6 million people in Sudan were already at Crisis level or worse by 2024, with projections rising to and exceeding 28 million during the peak lean season. The IPC uses a strict five-phase scale; Phase 3 and above means people cannot meet basic food needs without depleting critical assets.

The World Food Programme and OCHA both independently corroborated the 28 million figure in their 2024 assessments, pointing to the same root causes: mass displacement, collapsed agricultural systems, and blocked humanitarian access. Reuters reported the figure citing this same UN data, and Save the Children confirmed it while noting that famine has already been officially declared in at least one location — Zamzam camp in North Darfur.

The strongest honest caveat is that the 28 million figure reflects a peak lean-season projection, not a year-round constant. The baseline IPC figure of 25.6 million is the more conservative, sustained estimate. But even that number represents a near-doubling from the roughly 15.8 million people affected before the conflict began — a staggering deterioration in under two years.

This figure spread fast because it is both accurate and alarming. Advocacy groups and journalists amplified it to drive donor attention to a crisis that has received far less coverage than its scale demands. The number is real — the risk is that without sustained pressure, the world looks away.