UN Women Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, Anna Mutavati, has called for urgent global action to protect women and girls as Sudan descends deeper into acute food insecurity and conflict.

Speaking from the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Mutavati said women and girls have endured the sharpest edge of Sudan’s two-year conflict, which has devastated homes, livelihoods and futures.

A new UN Women gender alert, Gender Dimensions of Food Insecurity in Sudan, reveals that nearly 11 million women and girls are now acutely food insecure. The report confirms that simply being a woman in Sudan is a strong predictor of hunger.

The alert noted that famine was officially declared in El Fasher and Kadugli in November 2025 by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), with the crisis rapidly spreading across Darfur and Kordofan. According to the alert, 73.7 per cent of women do not meet minimum dietary diversity, signalling extremely poor diets and rising malnutrition.

“As fighting intensified in El Fasher, women and girls faced extreme hunger, displacement, death, and widespread sexual and gender-based violence. Field interviews show many women skip meals to ensure their children can eat, while adolescent girls often receive the smallest portions,” the report states.

Despite the dire conditions, women-led organisations remain central to the humanitarian response. UN Women urged all parties to immediately cease hostilities, ensure safe corridors for civilians and prioritize assistance to women and female-headed households.

The agency also called on donors to increase support for women-led groups that continue to operate on the front lines.

“Women and girls in Sudan are not statistics; they are the measure of our shared humanity. Every day the world delays acting on Sudan, another woman gives birth under fire, buries her child in hunger, or disappears without justice,” Mutavati said.