Dividing a meal between two days: WFP warns Sudan faces total food collapse by April

In displacement camps across Sudan, families fleeing war now face a new crisis: the World Food Programme (WHO) has begun cutting rations by up to half, warning that without $6 million in urgent funding, the entire food distribution system will collapse by June 2026, abandoning millions to starvation as international attention fades from one of the world's largest humanitarian catastrophes.

The cuts have already begun. Oil and protein sources such as lentils and beans were removed from January distributions, according to local humanitarian workers.

What remains barely sustains life for 15 days in a system designed to provide monthly nutrition.

Camp coordinators describe their work in stark terms: "We are redistributing hunger," says Elman Ali Mohammed, a 52-year-old food distribution coordinator at Al-Azhari Khalifa Allah camp in North Sudan's Daba locality.

"The rations being distributed are barely keeping people alive," he added.

The crisis intensified after El-Fasher fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in October 2025, sending new waves of displaced people into camps already stretched beyond capacity. The camps in the Al-Daba locality now host approximately 57,000 displaced persons who fled from Darfur and Kordofan, with thousands arriving daily after arduous journeys across Sudan.

The influx forced WFP to make impossible choices: divert aid from some camps to feed the newly displaced, effectively deciding which populations to abandon.

"Before they started reducing the rations, the food was barely enough for a few days, but at least we were getting something to eat," says Maymouna Abbas, 35, displaced to El Obeid from Bara city. "Now that they have cut the rations by half, every day is a struggle for survival. My youngest child is suffering from malnutrition, and we find ourselves having to divide our meals among everyone so that we can save what is left."

She pauses before adding the reality that defines camp life: "We divide one meal between two days. But even that is not enough".

Mathematics of survival

Last year's aid distribution tells the story of scale: 18,843 sacks of corn, 3,140 sacks of pulses, 2,014 cartons of oil, and 753 sacks of salt reached 62,634 people across 12,526 families, according to Hisham Antar Noman, coordinator of the WFP project at the Sudanese Red Crescent Society's northern branch.

Those numbers, already insufficient, now face cuts of 50-70% in the most affected areas.

"With the start of the reduction, rations have been cut by almost half, and we expect them to be reduced to the minimum," Noman says. "This has forced families to share meals more harshly, with many forced to skip meals or make do with what is available just to survive. Children, pregnant women, and the elderly have been the most affected, and we are seeing severe cases of weakness and malnutrition among beneficiaries daily".

Elman Ali Mohammed, who worked as a relief convoy driver across Darfur, Khartoum, Omdurman, and White Nile before taking his current coordination position in September 2024, describes the mechanics of managed starvation. Distribution occurs once a month or less, depending on supply availability. The standard ration before cuts included flour, legumes, oil, and salt. After reductions, oil and legumes—protein sources—vanished from January distributions.

"Even before the cuts, the rations we distributed didn't last a full month; at most, they lasted 15 days," Mohammed explains. "Large families suffered most, forced to reduce meals, which causes health complications. Children, pregnant women, and the elderly are the first to show signs of malnutrition. We distribute food knowing it's below the required minimum, far less than these families need. We feel regret about this, we grieve and feel helpless before all this hunger we can do nothing about."

Life at the breaking point

Mohamed Abdullah, 28, arrived at Al-Azhari Khalifa Allah camp last October after El-Fasher fell. Unmarried, he fled with two sisters while his parents remained in Niyara, a city in Darfur. Another sister lives with her husband in Tawila, where he works to support the family. Their 15-day journey to reach the camp marked the beginning of a new kind of endurance test.

"The situation in the camp is very difficult," Abdullah says. "Food is insufficient, water is scarce, and we stand in long queues to get it, either from local wells or from water tanks belonging to organisations inside the camp. Sanitation is also difficult, and sewage systems aren't available, but we're forced to stay here. We have nowhere else".

The cascade of deprivation compounds: inadequate water and sanitation breed disease, particularly among children and elderly residents. Medicine remains scarce. Clinics run by organisations provide basic supplies that fall far short of need. The camp operates in a state of perpetual waiting, for water trucks, for food deliveries, for tomorrow to somehow improve on today.

"We sleep in tents, we always think about tomorrow and hope it will be better," Abdullah says.

WFP's warning is unambiguous: Sudan urgently needs $6 million to maintain food operations through April. Without this funding, some programs will halt completely while others will be reduced to levels where, as aid workers put it, "We can no longer talk about nutrition, but only about postponing death."

The funding gap represents more than an administrative shortage; it reflects international attention drifting from Sudan's crisis as the war that began in April 2023 enters its third year. Camps designed as temporary shelters have become permanent cities filled with families who were left behind, without homes, markets, schools, or memories of security. Their new existence revolves around scarcity and waiting, reshaping lives around the question of when, or whether, the next meal arrives.

As Numan, the camp coordinator, put it: "We are redistributing hunger".

In camps across Sudan, that redistribution continues daily, measured in divided meals, lengthening queues, and the slow erosion of the thin thread connecting millions to survival.

This article is published in collaboration with Egab.