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More than half of Sudan’s population is now dependent on humanitarian aid, according to Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council, who described the scale of suffering in the war-torn country as “unimaginable”.
Speaking to AFP following a visit to a border region in Chad, Slente said over 30 million people in Sudan urgently need assistance.
The country’s population was estimated at around 50 million in 2024, according to World Bank figures.
Sudan has been engulfed in conflict since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Tens of thousands have been killed, nearly 12 million people displaced, and the country has been pushed into one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises.
Slente’s visit to the Chad–Sudan border followed renewed violence in the western Darfur region, where the RSF recently captured El-Fasher, the army’s final major stronghold in the area, after an 18-month siege.
Reports of mass atrocities have intensified alongside the fighting.
She said her organisation had documented evidence of mass killings, sexual violence, abductions, detentions, torture and forced displacement.
“There are violations that cross all international humanitarian laws,” she said.
Slente criticised the global response, arguing that international statements had done little to ease the humanitarian catastrophe or curb the violence.
She also warned that several besieged cities were receiving far less attention, despite their urgent need.
Among them are Babanusa, the army’s remaining stronghold in West Kordofan, which has been encircled for months, as well as El-Obeid in North Kordofan and Kadugli and Dilling in South Kordofan.
Slente appealed for stronger international action, saying the world must “stop managing the consequences of this conflict and must start preventing the atrocities”.
