Port Sudan and El Geneina, Sudan — These are the hurdles confronting relief groups after two years of war.
As Sudan's war nears its two-year mark, aid efforts are being sabotaged by deep funding cuts and systematic obstruction by the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, even as some relief groups report modest progress in reaching hard-hit areas of the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
The UN says it has assisted more people in recent months, and there is hope that access will improve further as the army reclaims Khartoum and other cities from the RSF -- areas it had cut off from aid as part of a strategy to starve rebel-held territory.
Still, months of interviews with aid officials in this special report highlight an unwieldy and often sluggish international response, with aid groups blocked or otherwise hindered from consistently reaching many of the people who need assistance the most, including in areas hit by catastrophic famine.
Interviews also exposed how both conflict parties are profiting from relief work, imposing fees on aid groups, extorting money at checkpoints, and renting vehicles, trucks, and compounds to sometimes unwitting agencies.
Civilians in conflict areas - where hundreds of people are thought to be dying every day - described their coping mechanisms breaking down. Some said they are eating animal feed to survive; others are suppressing hunger by drinking hot water.
At a glance: Sudan's struggling aid response
- Warring parties continue to block aid from areas controlled by their rivals
- Both sides are profiting from relief work even as famine deepens
- Army advances could improve aid access but reinforce a lopsided SAF-centred response
- Funding cuts have gutted aid programmes and hobbled mutual aid efforts
- International organisations could end up competing with local responders over dwindling resources
"Hunger is consuming me, and when I attempt to seek food from the families nearby, I find them in even worse situations, with nothing to spare," said Fatma Haron, a woman who lives in a displacement camp in the mostly RSF-controlled western Darfur region.
The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF began in April 2023. It has produced the world's largest displacement crisis, uprooting over 12 million people, and the biggest hunger crisis, with famine detected in ten areas and looming in 17 more.
Some had hoped the army's recent gains against the RSF would push it towards peace talks, as it has been the main party refusing negotiations. However, it has instead continued its military offensives, carrying out deadly airstrikes in Darfur.
Though weakened, the RSF is still threatening Khartoum, and is forging pacts with other rebel groups to broaden its coalition. It is also tightening control over Darfur, finalising plans for a parallel government that could cement Sudan's de facto partition.
As the war rages on, relief groups are reeling from US funding cuts, which accounted for nearly half of their resources last year. The reductions have forced organisations to pare back and reprioritise services.
US funding was especially crucial for local mutual aid groups known as emergency response rooms. They have led relief efforts in areas that international aid groups rarely reach, yet large numbers have suspended operations in recent weeks.
Two aid officials expressed concern that as international organisations fight for their survival, they may end up competing with local responders for dwindling resources - undermining a collaboration that had been strengthening over the past year.
"I am worried that this speaks to a broader trend of international actors being competitive with local actors rather than collaborative, given that they are worried about their own institutional stability," said one of the officials.
The official - like many of the more than two dozen humanitarian workers consulted for this story - requested anonymity so they could freely pass comment on humanitarian response efforts and the obstacles imposed by the army and RSF.
Army obstruction
International aid groups pulled out of conflict zones like Khartoum and Darfur early in the war, which was sparked by a power struggle between the SAF and the RSF - one driven by deeper political and social divisions and an effort to crush Sudan's revolution.
The international organisations set up a new hub in the eastern city of Port Sudan - the de facto capital in place of Khartoum but far away from conflict areas - leaving mutual aid groups, host families, and other local initiatives to shoulder the relief burden.
The UN recognises the SAF-led government as the de facto authority, yet the regime has continuously hindered aid efforts in Port Sudan by delaying or denying aid worker visas and dragging out travel permits, even for missions to areas under its control.
The SAF weaponises hunger by blocking cross-line and cross-border aid into RSF areas like Darfur -- restricting flows from Chad last year until a famine declaration they tried to prevent -- and into rebel regions in the famine-hit southern Nuba Mountains.
Some aid groups are now reaching more people in conflict areas. A spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) said it has gone from supporting one million people per month at the start of 2024, to nearly three million a month now.
Still, 25 million people (half the population) are acutely hungry, and a famine response plan developed last year by relief groups was described as "non-operational" by two aid officials, who blamed a lack of funding, access, and wider institutional failings.
With the army controlling Khartoum and taking back other key cities in central and eastern parts of the country, aid organisations are hoping their access may start to improve, given they won't need to cross front lines in these places.
Hundreds of thousands of people have already returned home in recent weeks to areas reclaimed by the army, and those numbers are expected to rise into the millions with the latest developments in Khartoum.
Still, permits to reclaimed cities have not been granted swiftly by army-aligned authorities, and are only easing as local officials in those areas put pressure on their peers in Port Sudan, said four aid workers monitoring humanitarian access.
The aid workers said some relief groups struggled to quickly mobilise for the recently retaken city of Wad Madani, near Khartoum, facing bureaucratic hurdles - authority-imposed and internal - along with poor roads and the risks of explosives.
Though humanitarian missions have now accessed the city, residents said markets remained empty for a long time after the change of control - both of relief supplies and private goods - leaving them unable to buy essentials, even if they had money.
Hanin Ahmed, an emergency response room organiser and coordinator, said "there is no real presence" of international humanitarian organisations in the localities where there has been a change of control.
"The majority of them are staying in Port Sudan, while the emergency response rooms sacrifice themselves and are doing their jobs on the ground," Ahmed told The New Humanitarian.
Several organisations said they want to scale up in Khartoum - where hunger deaths continue despite the RSF leaving - but some fear permit issuance will be slow as the paramilitary threat lingers, and that mass returns will overwhelm their capacity.
With a third of the year gone, Sudan's $4 billion UN-coordinated relief plan is currently only 10% covered, forcing organisations to cut back services - from support to farmers to children's education - and embark on a broader reprioritisation exercise.
Four officials said they also worry that the SAF may eventually try to pressure aid groups to prioritise relief for Khartoum returnees, using them to help re-establish control of the army and aligned state institutions in the devastated capital.
This could further skew efforts away from non-SAF areas, where aid is already "so insufficient", said one official. "The risk is that we get sidetracked by new access in areas in the east and aren't able to support areas in the west," they said.
Many of the challenges aid groups face are not new. Sudanese authorities have long viewed them as meddling outsiders, using bureaucratic hurdles, expulsions, and other tactics to control and instrumentalise humanitarian work.
The New Humanitarian sent questions over email and WhatsApp to the SAF-aligned Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), which oversees the work of aid agencies, but did not receive a response.
Darfur dilemmas
The SAF is now allowing aid into the RSF's Darfur stronghold through the town of Adré in Chad. It suspended the route in February 2024 - despite lacking a physical presence at the border and the means to block trucks - but gave permission again in August.
Since then, WFP has been able to bring in 30,000 metric tonnes of food via Adré, targeting around 2.8 million people, as well as separate cash assistance not reliant on the cross-border route, a spokesperson said.
This represents an increase in aid compared to the previous period but is insufficient for the nearly 7 million people facing extreme hunger in Darfur, and those receiving food aren't being reached consistently each month as is needed in a famine situation.
By contrast, WFP distributed over 560,000 metric tonnes of food from April 2004 to December 2005 during a prior conflict in Darfur when the government armed so-called Janjaweed militias against Darfuri rebels. The Janjaweed later morphed into the RSF.
The WFP spokesperson said the agency hopes to be able to reach seven million people across Sudan each month by mid this year, but a funding shortfall of $650 million could disrupt those efforts.
The Darfur response is especially expensive, UN officials said, because it is reliant on bringing in goods on trucks via a costly supply chain that runs through landlocked Chad.
By the time relief actually reaches Darfur's famine-affected communities, it often only covers a fraction of the population and is typically divided among people who "share everything", said Ahmed Gouja, a Darfuri human rights researcher and conflict analyst.
Gouja questioned why more support is not provided to local emergency response rooms in Darfur, which he framed as a much more efficient way to help. He said they have far lower operational costs, and don't bring in relief using planes and trucks.
"So much of the funds will be spent on logistics and administration," Gouja said of international aid efforts. "They hire a lorry from Adré to Kalma [a big camp in South Darfur state] and the goods inside are worth less than the fuel transporting it."
The SAF has also prevented a wider scale-up in Darfur by rejecting the UN's requests to deploy permanent staff and set up infrastructure. This has limited its presence to relief convoys, and compromises its ability to independently monitor distributions.
Even UN requests to repair a bridge over a valley linking West and Central Darfur have been ignored by a government ministry, officials said. Aid groups currently use a dried-out valley beneath the bridge, but the coming rainy season will put an end to that.
Critics say the UN is too deferential to the SAF, which it recognises as a state actor despite its rule stemming from a coup, and fails to vocally call it out for obstructing aid. Others argue it is down to the Security Council to fully empower UN agencies.
Several international NGO officials in Darfur said their organisations have generally been more risk-tolerant than UN agencies. They have tried to scale up their operations on the ground and bring supplies into the region even without the approval of the SAF.
However, some said SAF-aligned authorities have retaliated by disrupting their operations in the east - either through delayed visas for staff wanting to travel to Port Sudan or by issuing fewer travel permits in SAF-controlled areas.
This has dissuaded other international NGOs from working in Darfur, and has meant those with large missions in the west have sought to limit their visibility, despite wanting to publicly communicate about one of the world's worst famines in decades.
The UN's absence in Darfur affects international NGO operations. They partially depend on UN funding and supply chains, as well as the UN's role in coordinating aid and engaging with local authorities.
Several officials said obstruction doesn't alone explain the UN's faltering response. High turnover rates and leadership vacuums at the head of UN agencies were also cited as problems, as was a sometimes sluggish response to pressing issues.
A report last year by senior global humanitarian officials from UN agencies and international NGOs on mission in Sudan - seen in full by The New Humanitarian - recommended that organisations embrace "a much higher risk appetite".
The New Humanitarian asked the UN's top official in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, how its agencies have embraced that call in a series of questions sent on 2 April but did not receive answers ahead of publication.
"Lifesaving assistance hangs in the balance"
The RSF has also limited aid access in Darfur, notably through its territory to areas outside its control like parts of the town of El Fasher and the nearby Zam Zam displacement camp, where it is battling the army and aligned armed groups.
Hundreds of thousands of people are experiencing famine in the town and camp, yet The New Humanitarian has documented numerous relief convoys bound for these places that have been stopped by the RSF, held for weeks, and then turned away.
One driver carrying WFP supplies said they were held up near El Fasher for several weeks earlier this year by RSF forces who demanded they pay over $1,000 for each truck in a convoy. The driver said they paid some money but were later blocked again.
Since famine was declared in Zam Zam - Darfur's largest camp - only one WFP convoy has reached it. The agency says it has provided food vouchers so people can purchase from local markets, though these operations have been disrupted by fighting.
Zam Zam and El Fasher residents said traders are price gouging, a common business practice that capitalises on people's hunger. "Prices are set by merchants and often inflated," said Qissma Mohamed, an emergency response room volunteer in Zam Zam.
Around a dozen aid workers said the RSF's obstruction of aid has worsened in recent months, with movement permits withheld from humanitarian organisations operating across Darfur.
The aid workers said a freeze was imposed late last year by the paramilitary group's recently formed aid administration body, SARHO, as a way of pressuring aid groups into formally registering their presence in Darfur with the RSF.
The registration demand is seen as part of a broader RSF push to boost its legitimacy amid plans to form a parallel government. Most aid groups refused to comply, and SARHO has since eased the demand - though many expect the issue to resurface.
Several relief workers in Darfur said the freezing of permits caused significant setbacks to lifesaving projects and left some aid workers stranded in Chad, just as organisations fear they might soon lose even more access due to the rainy season.
In comments to the UN Security Council last month, Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said the SARHO directive had left aid organisations with "an impossible choice".
"Comply with SARHO's demands to formalise their presence and risk expulsion by the authorities in Port Sudan, or refuse and have their operations shut down by SARHO," Lockyear said. "Either way, lifesaving assistance hangs in the balance."
SARHO was set up to replicate the government-run HAC, which is known for bureaucratic and intrusive practices such as meddling in hiring processes and altering needs assessments.
In interviews last year, aid workers said SARHO had pledged to work differently to HAC - despite many of its staff being former HAC officials - yet this appears to have changed in recent months, with SARHO now closely mirroring its counterpart.
One aid worker offered an example of SARHO pressuring their organisation to alter aid recipient lists for certain projects, while another said the agency is inserting itself into recruitment committees and trying to influence hiring decisions.
As SARHO politicises aid, civilians in camps are struggling to survive. Fear of RSF attacks stopped many from working or farming, deepening hardship in a region long made hungry by a political and economic system that marginalises rural peripheries.
"Women can't go outside the camp looking for food because they are afraid to be raped by the militias, while the men can also be killed instantly," said Yousra Ismail, a resident of the sprawling Kalma camp.
The RSF is backed by the United Arab Emirates, which has a major influence in Africa and is a key Western ally. It has been funnelling arms to the RSF through Chad, using the cover of a field hospital run by the Emirates Red Crescent on the Darfur border.
Magdi el Gizouli, a Sudanese academic, questioned why "the 'international community' is willing to argue over truckloads of aid in a single border crossing but not to declare and sanction the belligerent on the same border that functions as a weapons conduit."
"The Sudanese people obviously cannot wait for the 'international community' to sort out its power games and have delivered mutual aid whenever and wherever possible with local community efforts," Gizouli said.
Profiting from aid
The RSF is financially exploiting aid, incorporating it into a broader extractive war economy, where its fighters are paid through a licence to ransack and asset-strip communities they have raided.
Several aid workers in Darfur said SARHO is increasingly demanding payments from aid groups in exchange for documents, project approvals, and for monitoring their work, though SARHO officials say these allegations are fabricated by the SAF.
One local aid worker described instances of SARHO intruding in procurement agreements so it can squeeze local companies that aid groups contract, while another cited incidents where the RSF requested money before distributions.
RSF-controlled checkpoints in Darfur, meanwhile, demand payments worth thousands of dollars from convoys carrying relief supplies, according to several humanitarian officials and interviews with truck drivers and civil society sources in Darfur.
A driver transporting food for WFP said he was charged $4,000 in fees to move a truck from the Chad border to a point about 300 kilometres inside Darfur. Similar practices have been documented by MSF.
Since aid groups and UN agencies cannot pay these fees directly, they subcontract the payments to drivers - who informally include the checkpoint costs in their overall billing to aid groups - according to the truck driver and several humanitarian sources.
One UN official said WFP is trying to use more staff drivers and clearly branded trucks to avoid these incidents, which mostly affect vehicles hired from commercial suppliers.
Checkpoints on roads fund armed groups in many conflicts, and while it is not unusual for aid groups to be targeted at them, the requirement shows the cost of operating in war zones and the ethical dilemmas organisations often face.
Other officials noted instances of aid groups failing to verify the ownership of buildings they were renting (which turned out to be RSF members), and several local aid workers mentioned cases of their organisations renting vehicles from RSF officials.
In one case, a field coordinator for a local NGO said their organisation was renting a car from an RSF member they believed had been looted from another aid group earlier on in the conflict. They said the aid group's logo had been painted over.
Even when aid organisations are not dealing directly with RSF members, the group's dominance in Darfur means suppliers and businesses are likely linked to them, or at least operating with their consent, and subject to their protection racket-style taxes.
The New Humanitarian obtained rental contracts between one international NGO with a large presence in Darfur and a prominent businessman who multiple local sources said has strong family and community links to the RSF.
Sources said the individual - who is based in the town of El Geneina, where the RSF committed acts of genocidal violence last year - provides trucks and vehicles for several UN agencies and international NGOs, and also smuggles fuel into Darfur for the use of both the RSF and aid groups.
"You see in the market who is able to sell certain products, make money transfers," said an official from an international NGO working in Darfur, in reference to the RSF-links of commercial traders and business elites.
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The RSF also benefits from aid by looting supplies. It stormed key aid hubs at the start of the conflict, and its fighters continue to steal from trucks in Darfur and elsewhere, though the frequency of this is unclear.
In one case last month, a driver transporting medicine for a UN agency reported being looted by the RSF in an area between the towns of El Daein and Nyala. He said he was physically threatened and had all the expensive medicines he was carrying stolen.
In another case last month, a doctor said his hospital in North Darfur state was taken over by the RSF. He claimed fighters looted all humanitarian stocks, including UN-supplied medicine to treat malnutrition.
Aid workers themselves have also been held at ransom. One local staff member for an international NGO working in Darfur said he was standing in front of his organisation's office earlier this year when RSF fighters kidnapped him.
The aid worker said he was held captive for eight days, during which time fighters demanded money from his relatives via phone calls, threatening to kill him if they didn't pay. His family sent thousands of dollars before he was released.
SAF and aligned state institutions have also been able to profit handsomely from aid flows through Port Sudan, multiple aid officials who are based in the city told The New Humanitarian.
Officials said HAC in particular has profited by charging relief groups various fees, such as for travel permits and for the per diems it demands for its staff, who insist on joining humanitarian missions.
In February, the UN's emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, said authorities are making "exorbitant financial demands for recruitment fees", while an organising forum for international NGOs in Sudan said authorities are demanding "informal fees" too.
Researchers say SAF officials own many of the residences where humanitarian workers are housed, and sometimes the trucking companies they contract for convoys.
Local media has accused authorities in Port Sudan of selling aid to traders, a concern echoed by several displaced people in SAF-controlled areas who spoke to The New Humanitarian. One mentioned seeing "Qatari tents and food" in several cities.
The New Humanitarian was unable to verify this, as aid recipients sometimes sell relief items for cash. The view that aid is being stolen may also stem in part from a severe lack of support, even in SAF areas where aid groups have a large presence.
"We are fed up with the promises we got from the international and local aid workers," said Amira Hamid, who fled Khartoum at the war's start and now lives in a Port Sudan shelter. She said she scrubs floors to feed her seven siblings, who she looks after.
Mutual aid under threat
Given the access challenges, some international donors and aid groups have increasingly been supporting the mutual aid groups known as emergency response rooms, which also receive funds from Sudanese philanthropists and the diaspora.
Donor officials and mutual aid volunteers told The New Humanitarian that tens of millions of dollars were disbursed last year -- a major success, they said, given how poorly traditional funding processes usually serve local community groups.
Still, even with growing support, the funding represented only a small fraction of the overall humanitarian budget for Sudan - and it has now taken a major hit with the US pulling out, as it was one of the main backers of emergency response rooms.
The New Humanitarian understands that another big donor to mutual aid groups is planning to increase its disbursements this year by several million dollars, but not to an extent that would cover the gap left by the US.
An aid worker from an international NGO warned of the risk of local responders being "thrown out as we all fight for survival". They said that whatever is left for Sudan in terms of humanitarian funding "must support local responders".
Hanin Ahmed, the emergency response room organiser, said the impact of funding cuts has been "severe". She cited disruptions to evacuation efforts for civilians, dialysis treatment for sick people, and soup kitchens in Darfur.
Security issues - a constant problem for emergency response room volunteers since the start of the conflict - are also worsening, as SAF and aligned militias have expanded their control.
Volunteers have been spuriously accused by SAF and allies of collaborating with the RSF - which also targeted them when it held sway - primarily because they served their communities while under paramilitary rule.
When state institutions like HAC return to Khartoum, some fear they will further clamp down on volunteers. HAC is wary of mutual aid groups because, unlike national and international NGOs, they are not registered with it and cannot be as easily controlled.
Ahmed called on those targeting volunteers to immediately stop. "We are the people who stood when no one did," she said. "Whether the international community or the Sudanese government, we were the people that covered that absence."
Edited by Andrew Gully.
