A joint ministerial statement published on 23 October 2026 by the UK and 31 other partners warned of a serious deterioration in Sudan's food security and cited the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's warning of famine risk in the coming months. The statement said an estimated 19.5 million people, 41% of the country's population, were experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, including 5 million facing emergency levels.

The signatories said that without immediate action, the number of children with severe acute malnutrition could exceed the projected 825,000, and that the number of food-insecure areas, initially assessed at 14, was expected to double. They identified conflict as the key driver, citing displacement, damaged infrastructure and disrupted health care, food production, supply chains and markets, aggravated by systematic obstruction of aid and by El Niño effects that have reduced rainfall and increased drought across more than half of Sudan.

The statement urged the parties to the conflict to lift impediments on humanitarian assistance and allow full, safe, rapid and unimpeded access, including air access into Darfur, and to protect humanitarian personnel and civilian infrastructure. It also called on the international community to scale up funding and on development and financial institutions to adapt programmes to the food security situation, including support for the winter cropping season.