“The crisis is worsening as people flee to areas where humanitarian aid cannot reach due to insecurity,” UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesperson Eujin Byun told reporters in Geneva.

The development comes a day after the top UN aid official in the country Bruno Lemarquis warned that a shortage of humanitarian routes was threatening the aid operation in the region.

Advance on Bukavu

The rebels, who seized North Kivu province’s capital Goma late last month, are advancing towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, following a short-lived lull in fighting.

Ms. Byun said that in South Kivu, more than half of the aid groups providing critical support to survivors of sexual violence “report being unable to reach those in need due to insecurity and continuous displacement”.

Meanwhile, in North Kivu, “the destruction of health facilities, including mortuaries, and overcrowded hospitals increase the risk of spreading infectious diseases, including cholera, malaria, and measles,” she said.

The UNHCR spokesperson also highlighted the fact that “heavy artillery shelling and looting” have destroyed 70,000 emergency shelters around Goma and Minova in North and South Kivu provinces, leaving some 350,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) “once again without a roof over their heads”.

While some 100,000 displaced people have attempted to return to their home areas – where they are met with damage to their homes and a lack of essential services – many remain stranded, Ms. Byun said.

Deadly remnants

Unexploded ordnance left over from the fighting is another obstacle to their safe return.

Ms. Byun warned of the possibility that those people “will be displaced once again”.

The UNHCR spokesperson stressed that most of the 28 IDP sites around Goma are now destroyed. The agency’s concern in terms of aid access is that the road from Goma to Bukavu has been cut off, she said.

Ms. Byun also recalled that the airport in Goma is “still not functioning for humanitarian aid”.

“Since violence has spread to South Kivu, this supply line is our biggest concern,” she added.

With the rebels pushing towards Bukavu, the UN’s Mr. Lemarquis expressed worry on Thursday about the fate of South Kivu’s main airport some 20 miles from the province’s capital, which until recently was the “main lifeline” for bringing in humanitarian personnel.

Mpox spread

Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO), Christian Lindmeier, highlighted the “heavy” impact of the hostilities on the mpox response, “particularly in Goma and the adjacent area” as the fighting spread southwards.

He stressed that the DRC is “the worst-affected country for mpox”, with Kivu being the epicentre of the highly infectious clade 1b outbreak.

Due to the rapid spread of the clade 1b strain, in August last year WHO moved to declare mpox once again a “public health emergency of international concern”, for the second time after a global outbreak of the virus made headlines in 2022.  

Earlier this month, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that before the latest violence in eastern DRC, mpox cases had been stabilizing. But the recent fighting has forced patients to flee treatment centres, increasing transmission risks.

“Out of 143 confirmed mpox patients in isolation units in Goma and around, 128 fled in fear for their lives,” Mr. Lindmeier said, stressing that only 15 patients remain in isolation.

“That’s of course dangerous for everybody around,” he insisted.

Mr. Lindmeier added that some health facilities in the area had been looted, health workers had fled, and people were unable to access healthcare because of the security situation.

Speaking at a high-level humanitarian conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, António Guterres described the situation in Sudan as a catastrophe of “staggering scale and brutality”.

He warned that it is increasing spilling into the wider region.

“It is a crisis that demands sustained and urgent attention,” he said, underscoring the need to ensure protection of civilians and humanitarians, as well as unhindered access to all those in need.

Mr. Guterres also stressed the need to stop the flow of arms and ammunition into the country.

“This flow is enabling the continuation of tremendous civilian destruction and bloodshed,” he added.

Nearly 22 months of conflict between Government forces and their former allied militia, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has left more than 30 million people across Sudan in need of assistance and protection.

That figure includes over 12 million displaced from their homes, of whom 3.3 million have sought refuge outside the country’s borders.

Food security and health situations are equally worrying, with less than a quarter of Sudan’s health facilities functioning in areas worst hit by fighting. Nearly 25 million people are suffering from “acute” levels of hunger.

Coordinated response

To respond to the staggering needs, the UN alongside humanitarian partners, is preparing to launch two major response plans for Sudan and its neighbouring countries, requiring a combined $6 billion to assist nearly 26 million people most in need.

“These UN-coordinated appeals far exceed any we have launched for Sudan and for the region. And indeed, it represents the unprecedented dimensions of the needs we are facing,” Mr. Guterres said, underlining the scale of the crisis.

He also applauded local responders and civil society organizations – including women-led organizations – who continue to work bravely and tirelessly to provide assistance and services in their communities, often at great personal risk.

Call for a ceasefire

Mr. Guterres also highlighted the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and protection of civilians.

“My Personal Envoy [Ramtane Lamamra] is engaging with the warring parties on concrete ways to advance these aims, including through the full implementation of the Jeddah Declaration,” he said.

Signed by the leaders of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States – the Jeddah Declaration outlined key steps, including respect for international humanitarian law, protecting civilians from harm, facilitating humanitarian aid, and dialogue to reach a ceasefire.

Call for global solidarity

As the holy month of Ramadan approaches, Mr. Guterres called on world leaders to use their influence to support peace and humanitarian aid efforts.

“At this blessed time for peace, compassion, giving and solidarity, I urge all of you to use your tremendous leverage for good,” he said.

“We must do more – and do more now – to help the people of Sudan out of this nightmare,” he concluded.

Secretary-General Guterres speaks to the press on the sidelines of the 2025 AU Summit in Addis Ababa.

Other engagements

Also on Friday, the Secretary-General took part in meetings of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council, focusing on the crises in Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

On Sudan, Mr. Guterres reiterated that there is no military solution to the conflict and stressed the urgent need for an immediate cessation of hostilities, his spokesperson told reporters at a regular briefing in New York.

Regarding DRC, Mr. Guterres called for the swift implementation of the conclusions reached at the recent Joint Summit of leaders from the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

In addition, the UN chief held bilateral meetings with African leaders, including the Presidents of Kenya, Rwanda and Guinea-Bissau, as well as the outgoing Chairperson of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki. 

1) The war: 2023 Khartoum clashes herald end of peace process

By the end of 2022, there were hopes that a UN- backed peace process would finally lead to a civilian administration in Sudan, after a tumultuous period which saw the fall of long-term dictator Omar al-Bashir in a military coup, followed by the harsh suppression of protests in favour of civilian rule.

“A final political agreement should pave the way towards building a democratic State”, saidformer UN Special Representative for Sudan, Volker Perthes, in December 2022. Ominously, however, he warned that “critical contentious issues” remained, not least a merger of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), separate military groups which had teamed up to depose al-Bashir.

Tensions between the two sides grew in early 2023, marked by intermittent clashes, but the start of the current civil war came with the RSF attack on the capital Khartoum on 15 April. The fighting, which then spread to other parts of the country, forced the UN to evacuate Khartoum, and base operations in the relatively stable city of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea.

On Friday, the Secretary-General, described the situation in Sudan as a catastrophe of “staggering scale and brutality” at the AU’s high stakes annual meeting in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and warned that it is increasingly spilling into the wider region. The UN has strongly condemned the fighting, and the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy to Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, continues to support peace efforts, in close collaboration with regional organizations, including the African Union (AU). 

2) Humanitarian crisis: More than 30 million need aid

The war has been catastrophic for Sudan’s civilians and the numbers are staggering. Some 30.4 million people – over two thirds of the total population – are in need of assistance, from health to food and other forms of humanitarian support. The fighting has led to an economic collapse, sending the prices of food, fuel and other basic goods soaring, putting them beyond the reach of many households.

Acute hunger is a growing problem. Over half the population faces high levels of acute food insecurity, and famine conditions have been confirmed in five locations in North Darfur and the eastern Nuba mountains. Famine is expected to spread to five more areas by May of this year.

“This is a critical moment, as the consequences of food insecurity are already being felt in parts of South Kordofan, where families are surviving on dangerously limited food supplies, and malnutrition rates are rising sharply,” warned Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan.

Humanitarian efforts are severely hampered by the lack of security, which is putting severe constraints on humanitarian access, complicating the movement of supplies and endangering aid workers.

Despite the dangers, the UN and its humanitarian partners continue to reach vulnerable populations. The World Food Programme – the UN’s emergency food aid agency – is saving thousands of lives every day and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) successfully distributed seeds to over half a million households during the planting season. In all, some 15.6 million people received at least one form of aid from the UN in 2024.

The country’s health system is on its knees, with health facilities attacked and many health workers forced to flee. The World Health Organization and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are still operational, supporting immunization for cholera and malaria, and deploying mobile medical teams.

3) Massive displacement: Equivalent to the entire Swiss population

Huge numbers of people have been forced to flee their homes for areas of relative safety, both within Sudan and in neighbouring countries, adding to regional instability. Over three million people are classified as refugees, and almost nine million are internally displaced. The total displaced population is greater than the entire population of Switzerland.

Because of the shifting frontlines, there have been successive waves of displacement, making the task of reaching those in need increasingly complicated. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has described the situation in Sudan as “the largest as well as the fastest growing displacement crisis globally.”

The displaced population, whether they remain in Sudan or have moved abroad, face reduced access to food, scarce natural resources and limited access to essential services. In addition, outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and measles are rampant in camps for refugees and internally displaced people.

Many of the surrounding nations have their own economic and security problems, and some are among the poorest in the world, with limited and overstretched services. Where possible, the UN migration agency (IOM) and UNHCR are protecting lives, supporting states hosting refugees, and ensuring that the needs of those fleeing are met with dignity.

4) Insecurity: Women and girls highly vulnerable

Over 18,800 civilians have been reported killed since the beginning of the conflict, and the levels of violence in Sudan are getting worse. At the beginning of February, at least 275 people were killed in just one week, a threefold increase on the previous week’s death toll.

Civilians are being hit by artillery shelling, airstrikes and aerial drone attacks: the worst affected regions are South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. As well as the general population, aid workers have been targets of intimidation and violence, with reports that some have been falsely accused of collaborating with the RSF.

A UN fact-finding mission has documented a range of harrowing human rights violations committed by both the SAF and RSF, and called for investigations into the violations, and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

In an interview with UN News, Edmore Tondhlana, the deputy head of the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), explained that women and girls are the most severely impacted by the conflict, with reports of rape, forced marriage and abductions. “If you look at the recent attack in South Kordofan, in which about 79 people were killed, the majority of victims were women and girls.”

However, teenage boys are also at high risk. “They cannot easily travel between frontlines. They will be suspected of spying,” added Mr. Tondhlana. Large numbers of children have been recruited into armed groups, forced to fight or spy against the other side.

Sudan. Offloading of barge transported food aid

5) Funding: Billions needed

A lack of sufficient funds is severely limiting the UN’s ability to help Sudan’s population. UNHCR and partners have been able to provide less than the bare minimum of support for refugees, and food rations have been drastically cut, adding to food insecurity.

On Monday, OCHA and UNHCR will launch an appeal for funding, based on their respective response plans to the crisis. Humanitarian needs have been estimated at a record (for Sudan) $4.2 billion, with an additional $1.8 billion needed to support those hosting refugees in neighbouring countries.

Whilst the amount needed might seem large, Mr. Tondhlana emphasizes that, given the numbers in dire need, it barely scratches the surface. “We’re trying to reach 21 million people, so this essentially $200 per person over the whole year. If we break it down even further, this is around $.0.50 per day.