LONDON: Grassroots Sudanese aid groups are filling critical humanitarian gaps left by limited international access, but their volunteers are facing hunger, arrest and deadly risks as the conflict enters its fourth year, speakers warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. 

More than 20 million people in Sudan are facing acute hunger, while more than 11 million have been displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. As fighting continues and access for international agencies tightens, community-led networks have become a primary lifeline for civilians across the country. 

“We need to strengthen local capacity and support community-led solutions like Emergency Response Rooms and mutual aid groups, with a more localized and decolonized humanitarian response,” said Hanin Ahmed, a Sudanese activist and Emergency Response Room leader. 

Ahmed described how volunteers were delivering food, medical support and protection services in areas that international organizations struggled to reach. However, she warned that these efforts came at immense personal cost.

Volunteers are often displaced themselves, facing food insecurity, arrest, kidnapping, and in some cases, killing by the warring parties. Famine, she said, was no longer confined to traditionally affected regions.

“There is famine not only in Darfur, but also in Khartoum, the capital,” Ahmed told the panel, pointing to widespread unemployment, disease outbreaks, and rising cases of gender-based violence across multiple states. 

Despite the scale of the crisis, Ahmed emphasized that Sudanese communities retained both the willingness and capacity to recover if adequately supported.

“Sudanese people are willing to resolve this war if supported,” she said. 

Panelists stressed that hunger in Sudan was not driven by a lack of aid, but by deliberate barriers to its delivery. 

“The story of Sudan’s war is a story of impunity,” said David Miliband, president and chief executive officer of the International Rescue Committee.

“To tackle impunity, we need to challenge restrictions on humanitarian access, end sieges, and address the profiteering that fuels the conflict,” he added.  

Miliband said that while humanitarian funding remained critically low, access constraints were the primary factor preventing life-saving assistance from reaching civilians. Only 28 percent of the UN humanitarian appeal for Sudan had been funded, he said, compounding the effects of obstruction on the ground. 

Meanwhile, where assistance was available, needs continued to outstrip capacity. Barham Salih, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described visiting refugee-hosting areas along Sudan’s borders, where people arrived after experiencing extreme violence, deprivation and trauma.

“Ten liters of water per person per day is far below emergency standards,” Salih said.

“Only 16 percent of those who need mental health support are receiving it, and only one in three families in need of shelter actually have access,” he added.  

Salih stressed that statistics failed to capture the scale of human suffering. “Behind every number is a human life,” he said, recounting testimonies of abuse, rape and killings from refugees who had crossed the border only hours earlier. 

As humanitarian systems inside Sudan continue to falter, the consequences are increasingly felt beyond its borders.

Neighboring countries including Chad, Kenya, Egypt and Uganda are hosting large numbers of Sudanese refugees despite limited infrastructure and resources. 

“What starts in Sudan does not stay in Sudan,” Miliband said. “This is a crisis with regional implications.”  

While host governments have kept borders open and adopted inclusive policies that allow refugees access to services and livelihoods, panelists warned that generosity alone could not sustain the response without stronger international support. 

The discussion in Davos highlighted that Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was shaped not by a lack of solutions, but by who is allowed to deliver aid, where, and under what conditions.