Farmers across several Sudanese agricultural regions told Reuters that escalating input costs are forcing them to scale back planting plans for key crops, including sorghum, millet, wheat and sesame, undermining production at a time when nearly half the population faces severe food shortages.

Sudan is particularly exposed to disruptions stemming from the regional conflict because it relies on Gulf countries for more than half of its fertilizer imports, according to United Nations data. The country has also become entirely dependent on imported fuel after more than three years of civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The crisis comes as Sudan remains one of the world’s most severe humanitarian emergencies. A UN-backed food security monitor estimates that about 19.5 million people, or more than 40% of the population, are experiencing crisis-level hunger, with some areas facing famine risks.

Sadig Elamin, senior food security analyst for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Sudan, said the regional conflict had compounded existing challenges facing the agricultural sector.

“The regional war has added salt to the wound,” Elamin said, warning that agricultural output could decline by at least 40% if current pressures persist.
Agriculture remains central to Sudan’s economy and livelihoods, with roughly two-thirds of the population dependent on farming. Despite vast agricultural potential that has attracted Gulf investment interest, decades of conflict, underinvestment and mismanagement have constrained productivity.

In the Jamuia agricultural scheme south of Omdurman, farmers had anticipated a recovery after RSF fighters were expelled from areas surrounding Khartoum last year. Instead, they now face fertilizer prices that have risen 67% from a year earlier, while diesel costs used to power irrigation pumps have more than doubled, according to national surveys.

“At that price we don’t make a profit, you spend your whole profit on the diesel,” farmer Bashir Ismail told Reuters.

Omar Al-Ebeid, secretary of the scheme’s farmers’ committee, said only 500 of the project’s 10,000 feddans, equivalent to about 4,200 hectares, had been planted midway through the season.

Farmers also criticized the army-aligned government for failing to provide sufficient support as state resources are increasingly directed toward the war effort.

Mohamed Balla, who heads a farmers’ collective in the Gezira scheme, once responsible for around half of Sudan’s sorghum and wheat production, said damaged infrastructure and rising costs were discouraging cultivation.

“The RSF left in February of last year. Nothing has been fixed since then,” Balla said.

He added that crop prices have remained largely unchanged despite soaring costs for agricultural inputs. “Two sacks of wheat buy you one sack of urea. So we won’t grow it again.”

National cereal production had already fallen by about 25% from pre-war averages, according to FAO estimates. Analysts warn further declines could intensify food shortages and increase reliance on humanitarian assistance.

Sudan’s Agricultural Bank, traditionally a major source of financing for farmers, has also struggled amid the conflict. Farmers say financing terms have become increasingly burdensome, pushing many producers into debt.

The bank’s leadership told Reuters it was seeking to ease pressure on farmers by offering inputs on more favorable repayment terms and extending financing periods.

Fatma Yousif, director of agricultural production at Sudan’s Agriculture Ministry, said authorities were coordinating with the bank to establish a financing fund and examining options to help farmers manage fuel costs. She said efforts were also underway to rehabilitate irrigation infrastructure damaged during the conflict.

In western Sudan, insecurity continues to hamper production in Kordofan and Darfur, regions critical for sesame, peanuts, millet and gum arabic exports.
“There is no funding for farmers, no machinery for planting and plowing the land, and no security because the RSF and other gangs loot the crops and demand money at every checkpoint,” said Mohamed Adam, a farmer displaced from West Kordofan to the army-held city of El Obeid.

Farmers in the region reported widespread looting of tractors and agricultural equipment, recruitment of farm laborers into armed groups, and mass displacement of rural communities, leaving large areas of farmland unprepared for the approaching rainy season.

Khalid Abdellatif, a director at agricultural supplier CTC Group, said transporting farming supplies into conflict-affected areas had become increasingly costly and dangerous, with small-scale farmers bearing the brunt of the disruption.

The warning is the first Child Alert issued by the United Nations children’s agency for Darfur in 20 years and is used only in the most severe emergencies to draw urgent international attention.“Children are at a breaking point across the region. Childhood is again defined by fear, by loss,” Sheldon Yett, UNICEF’s representative in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Port Sudan.“Children are bearing the heaviest weight of the war in Darfur.

Children are being killed and maimed, uprooted from their homes and pushed into extreme hunger, disease and trauma,” he said.Darfur, a vast region in western Sudan, has remained one of the epicenters of the conflict that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The fighting has included ethnically driven killings, widespread displacement and repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure, reviving memories of the earlier Darfur conflict that began in 2003 when rebels rose against Sudan’s government and state-backed Arab militias launched a brutal counterinsurgency campaign.

UNICEF said homes, schools and health facilities across the region have been burned, damaged or destroyed, leaving children without access to education, medical care or basic safety.The agency warned that despite the worsening crisis, international attention and funding remain far below what is needed.

Its humanitarian appeal for Sudan this year is only 16% funded.Across Sudan, at least 160 children were reportedly killed and 85 injured in the first three months of 2026, a significant increase compared with the same period last year, UNICEF said.

The most severe impact has been recorded in Al-Fashir, the long-besieged capital of North Darfur, where at least 1,300 children have been killed or maimed since April 2024.UNICEF also reported cases of sexual violence, child abductions and forced recruitment of minors by armed groups in the area.

Acute malnutrition has worsened sharply, with famine-level conditions confirmed in two additional areas of North Darfur in February, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Aid agencies have repeatedly warned that restricted humanitarian access, continued shelling and the collapse of essential services are accelerating the risk of mass starvation, particularly among children and displaced families.

The conflict has displaced millions across Sudan and created one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies, with Darfur once again at the center of the crisis.

The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) said its analysis of satellite imagery and open-source data showed activity “consistent with military assistance” to the RSF at a base in Asosa, in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region, between late December 2025 and late March 2026.The RSF has been engaged in a conflict with Sudan’s army since April 2023.

Sudan’s military had previously accused Ethiopia of allowing drone attacks to be launched from its territory, an allegation Addis Ababa has denied, along with claims it hosts RSF camps.

According to the HRL report, researchers identified repeated arrivals of commercial car carriers at the Asosa base unloading “technicals,” light pickup trucks commonly used by armed groups.

These vehicles were later observed supplying RSF units operating in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.The report said some vehicles were subsequently fitted with mounts capable of carrying heavy machine guns, while objects consistent with .50-calibre weapons were also detected nearby.

Similar vehicles later appeared in open-source imagery from fighting around Al-Kurmuk, a strategic border town approximately 100 km from Asosa.HRL also documented increased logistical activity at the base, including the arrival of shipping containers, fuel tanks and tents capable of housing up to 150 personnel.

Satellite imagery showed expansion at Asosa airport, including a new hangar, concrete pad and defensive positions. The site had previously been used as a drone base.

The findings come as fighting intensifies in Blue Nile state, where an estimated 28,000 people have been displaced this year, including more than 10,000 from Al-Kurmuk alone.

Control of the region remains divided between Sudan’s army and RSF-aligned forces from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu.

The strike, which occurred on Wednesday, targeted the Al-Salama neighborhood near a girls’ school, according to the El-Fasher Resistance Committee.

The group attributed the attack to the Sudanese army, which has been engaged in a conflict with the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023.

A medical source said the victims brought to a local hospital included six children, among them three secondary school students.

Sixteen others were wounded in the attack, including women and children, and are receiving treatment.

The strike underscores the continuing toll of the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, where fighting between the army and paramilitary forces has displaced large numbers of civilians and strained already limited medical resources.