Middle East War Escalates Threats to Sudan Farmers as Humanitarian Crisis Deepens
Farmers across Sudan are facing unprecedented threats to their livelihoods as the Middle East conflict disrupts supply chains, drives food price inflation, and diverts international attention from a war that has already displaced millions and pushed the country toward famine, aid workers report.
The ongoing Middle East war which has drawn in multiple regional powers and disrupted global shipping routes has sent shockwaves through Sudan s already fragile food systems. Agricultural input costs have soared as fertiliser and pesticide prices climb globally, while the conflict has forced humanitarian organisations to redirect resources away from Sudan toward crises precipitated by the Middle East escalation.
The war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has already caused massive displacement and created conditions that the United Nations has warned could meet the legal threshold for famine. An estimated 24 million people more than half Sudan s population face acute food insecurity, and the destruction of agricultural infrastructure in key production zones has severely curtailed this year s harvest.
Aid workers say the compounding effects of the Middle East conflict are now making a bad situation catastrophically worse. International donors, stretched thin by simultaneous crises in Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere, are reducing their contributions to Sudan even as needs multiply. Shipping disruptions caused by Red Sea tensions have increased the cost of importing food commodities into a country that can no longer feed itself.
The Human Cost
In the agricultural heartlands of Al Jazirah and Gedarif states traditionally Sudan s breadbasket farmers report being caught between impossible choices. RSF forces have seized crops and equipment in some areas, while SAF aerial bombardments have destroyed farm infrastructure and forced rural populations to flee.
Last year we managed to get some crop in before the fighting reached our village, said Abdelmalek Hassan, a farmer from Blue Nile state who has been displaced to a camp near Damazine. This year we have not planted at all. There is no fuel, no seeds, no security. We are entirely dependent on humanitarian aid that keeps getting delayed.
The World Food Programme has warned that without a significant increase in funding and humanitarian access, parts of Sudan will experience famine conditions within months. The convergence of the Middle East war with the ongoing conflict in Sudan has created what UN officials describe as a perfect storm of competing humanitarian emergencies that is overwhelming the global response capacity.
Regional Spillover
The crisis in Sudan also has significant regional dimensions. Chad, South Sudan, and Egypt all of which host large numbers of Sudanese refugees are themselves under economic strain, and the continued outflow of displaced people is stretching their resources to the limit. An estimated 1.5 million Sudanese refugees have crossed into Chad, while hundreds of thousands more have sought shelter in South Sudan and Egypt.
The international community s focus on the Middle East has complicated diplomatic efforts to pressure the warring parties in Sudan toward a ceasefire. Previous ceasefire negotiations have repeatedly collapsed, and neither the SAF nor the RSF has shown willingness to make significant concessions. With global attention fractured across multiple crises, Sudan risks becoming the world s most forgotten catastrophe.
For Sudan s farmers, the immediate future is bleak. The main agricultural season is already underway, and those who have not been able to plant face the prospect of an even more devastating hunger gap when the current stocks run out. Without a dramatic change in the security and humanitarian situation, the coming months could see mortality rates from starvation rise sharply across the country.
