UN Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Hunger in Besieged Sudan City

August 7, 2025 

(UNITED NATIONS) – Residents of the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan are resorting to eating animal feed as a catastrophic hunger crisis deepens, the United Nations said on Thursday, calling for unimpeded aid access to the region.

A prolonged siege and soaring food prices have left thousands in the North Darfur capital facing starvation, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“The suffering is immense, with people trapped, displaced or returning to ruin,” OCHA’s Director of Operations, Edem Wosornu, said during a visit to Sudan.

The U.N. has reiterated urgent calls for a pause in fighting to allow aid to reach the city, where no road deliveries have been possible for more than a year.

The economic collapse has pushed the cost of basic goods in El Fasher to nearly $1,000 per household per month, the highest in the nation. The cost of food alone exceeds $700, more than eight times the average in other parts of the country, according to the U.N.

Humanitarian agencies are also battling a spreading public health crisis. A sanitation campaign was launched on Aug. 5 in and around El Fasher to prevent disease outbreaks in overcrowded displacement sites during the rainy season, targeting 11,000 people.

At the same time, partners are scaling up their response to a cholera outbreak in the nearby locality of Tawila, which has absorbed 330,000 people fleeing conflict since April.

The cholera outbreak is also surging in Sudan’s Blue Nile State, where nearly 2,800 cases have been recorded since late June, including more than 40 new infections on Wednesday alone, the briefing noted. Fourteen deaths have been reported there.

Wosornu is scheduled to brief reporters from Port Sudan on Friday.