Strike on Sudan hospital kills 22 as famine-level malnutrition spreads in North Darfur, aid groups warn

When the blast tore through Al-Kuweik Military Hospital in Sudan’s South Kordofan state on Thursday, the shock shattered not only its concrete walls but one of war’s supposed red lines.

By nightfall at least 22 people were dead, including four members of the medical staff and the hospital’s director, and eight others were wounded, according to the Sudan Doctors Network, a professional association that has been documenting attacks on health care during the conflict. The group accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of striking the facility and called the attack a war crime.

The bombardment came the same day new data showed famine-level malnutrition rapidly spreading across North Darfur, underscoring how nearly three years of fighting between Sudan’s warring generals is dismantling the basic systems that keep people alive: food markets and hospitals.

Famine thresholds surpassed in two North Darfur localities

A new alert from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), released Thursday, found that acute malnutrition among young children in two localities of North Darfur—Um Baru and Kernoi—has surpassed famine thresholds.

• Um Baru: 52.9% of children aged 6–59 months are acutely malnourished, including 18.1% with severe acute malnutrition.
• Kernoi: 34% are acutely malnourished, including 7.8% severe.

Those figures far exceed the 30% benchmark the IPC uses as one of three criteria to classify a full famine. The system also considers mortality and food-consumption patterns. Analysts say the new data confirm that one famine criterion is already met in Um Baru and Kernoi and warn that a full famine could soon be declared if deaths and hunger-related indicators align.

“The latest IPC findings confirm what we are witnessing on the ground: hunger is worsening across Sudan after nearly three years of unrelenting conflict,” said Miji Park, Mercy Corps’ country director for Sudan, in a statement responding to the report. “Our teams are reporting the deaths of children due to severe hunger and unpreventable illness—an unimaginable outcome that no family should ever face.”

The update builds on an earlier IPC analysis that formally classified parts of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and the city of Kadugli in South Kordofan as in IPC Phase 5 (famine) for the period from September 2025 to January 2026. That assessment found that about 21.2 million people—roughly 45% of Sudan’s population—were facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse at the height of last year’s lean season. Projections for February through May this year still foresee about 19.1 million people in crisis or worse.

The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) now describes Sudan as the world’s largest hunger crisis. The U.N. says more than 14 million people have been displaced by the war, making it also the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis.

War, displacement and “siege conditions”

The conflict erupted in April 2023 as a power struggle between the Sudanese armed forces, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, a powerful paramilitary commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti. Fighting that began in the capital, Khartoum, quickly spread west into Darfur and south into the Kordofan region.

Since then, the battlefield map has shifted in ways that closely track the geography of hunger. In late October, RSF forces seized El Fasher, the army’s last major stronghold in Darfur, prompting large waves of civilians to flee into already impoverished rural areas, including Um Baru and Kernoi. Markets collapsed as trade routes were cut, and aid groups say repeated looting and insecurity have made it nearly impossible to sustain food deliveries.

Across Darfur and the Kordofan states, residents and humanitarian agencies describe what U.N. officials have called “siege conditions.” Roads into cities such as Kadugli and Dilling have been blocked or frequently attacked. Banks have stopped functioning. Fuel and medical supplies are scarce or absent. In some isolated communities, families have survived on leaves and wild plants, aid groups say.

A coalition of 22 international aid organizations warned in a joint statement that the new malnutrition figures in Um Baru and Kernoi reflect “extreme, life-threatening deprivation” and that “famine may soon be confirmed” there if nothing changes. “Thousands are likely already dead and many children face lifelong damage,” the organizations said.

Health system under fire

At the same time, the country’s health system has been steadily eroded by direct attacks, particularly in the very regions where famine and near-famine conditions are most acute.

The Sudan Doctors Network said the Al-Kuweik hospital strike was part of “repeated assaults on health facilities” in South Kordofan. A day earlier, it reported that a drone hit the Military Medical Corps Hospital in Kadugli, killing at least one person and injuring eight others. In 2025, drone and airstrikes damaged hospitals in the towns of Kalogi and Dilling, killing dozens of civilians.

The World Health Organization and U.N. officials have documented nearly 200 attacks on health care facilities, staff and patients nationwide since the war began, leaving more than 1,700 health workers and patients dead and hundreds wounded.

Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, medical facilities and personnel are afforded special protection and must not be targeted. They can lose that protection only if they are used to commit “acts harmful to the enemy,” and even then, attacking forces are required to issue a warning and allow time for compliance.

The Sudan Doctors Network said the Al-Kuweik strike “constitutes a war crime and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and conventions guaranteeing the protection of civilians and medical establishments.” As of Friday, the RSF had not publicly commented on the specific allegations. In past incidents, both the RSF and the army have denied targeting hospitals and blamed the other side for strikes.

The loss of medical facilities in famine-affected and high-risk areas magnifies the crisis. Malnutrition weakens immune systems, making commonplace infections—measles, diarrhea, respiratory illness—far more likely to be fatal without treatment. Hospitals and clinics often host therapeutic feeding centers that treat severely malnourished children. When those facilities are damaged or abandoned, those children lose their last safety net.

Aid officials say the indirect death toll from disease and untreated injuries is likely to far outstrip the casualties from bullets and bombs.

Funding pledges, access constraints, and cease-fire talks

Global alarm about Sudan’s trajectory has begun to translate into new pledges. This week, the United States and the United Arab Emirates announced a joint $700 million humanitarian fund for Sudan and the region, with $200 million from Washington and $500 million from Abu Dhabi. The WFP says it alone needs about $700 million to sustain its operations in Sudan through mid-2026.

Humanitarian agencies caution that funding is only one part of the equation. Access to people in need is constrained by insecurity, checkpoints, bureaucratic restrictions, and the looting or commandeering of aid convoys.

Diplomatic efforts are also underway to pause the fighting. The United States has proposed a cease-fire to coincide with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Feb. 17. Both the army and the RSF have signaled conditional openness to negotiations, while continuing to try to improve their positions on the ground.

As discussions continue, aid workers warn that the timeline of diplomacy does not align with the timeline of hunger.

“It is deeply alarming that famine-level malnutrition has been confirmed in two additional areas of North Darfur,” said Fati N’Zi-Hassane, Oxfam in Africa’s director. “This is in addition to the extreme hunger levels already being experienced by communities who have suffered nearly three years of brutal war.”

For families in places like Um Baru, Kernoi and Kadugli, the convergence of spreading famine and collapsing health care means that survival depends on two fragile hopes: that aid can reach them in time—and that the next strike does not fall on the clinic they are walking toward.