Sudan | Pakistan

More than half of Sudan’s population is in need of humanitarian aid, the head of the Danish Refugee Council told AFP, as fighting ravages the northeast African nation. Since breaking out in April 2023, the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. “We see a situation where more than 30m people are in need of humanitarian assistance. That is half of the population of Sudan,” Danish Refugee Council Secretary General Charlotte Slente told AFP by phone this week after a visit to a border region in neighbouring Chad. “The suffering we see is unimaginable.” Sudan had a population of around 50m people in 2024, according to the World Bank. The aid official’s comments came after a field visit to an area in Chad that borders Sudan’s western Darfur region, which has seen fierce fighting of late. Violence has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, with the RSF sei...

UN rights chief Volker Turk on Friday warned of escalating atrocities in and around El-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, urging the international community to take “immediate and decisive action” to protect civilians trapped by months of fighting.

An armed group that controls part of western Sudan appealed on Tuesday for foreign help in recovering bodies and rescuing residents from torrential rain, after it said at least 1,000 people were killed when a landslide buried a mountain village. Only one person survived the destruction of the village of Tarseen in the mountainous Jebel Marra area of the Darfur region, said the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A). SLM/A, which has long controlled and governed an autonomous portion of Jebel Marra, appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies to help collect the bodies of victims, including men, women and children. “Tarseen, famed for its citrus production, has now been completely levelled to the ground,” the group said in a statement. Continuing rains have made travel in the region difficult and could impede any rescue or aid efforts. “Nearby villagers are overwhelmed with fear that a similar fate might befall them if the … torrential rainfall persists, which underscores the urgent need for ...