Sixty-Five Per Cent: Sudan's Kordofan Displacement Surges As Funding Falls Short
New displacement across Sudan's Kordofan region climbed from 132,000 people in February to over 219,000 by late June, IOM reports, as fighting spreads to new towns and donor funding fails to keep pace.
A camp for people displaced by conflict in Sudan. Photo: USAID, public domain.
On 3 July, the International Organization for Migration reported that displacement across Sudan's Kordofan region had risen 65 per cent in just four months — the sharpest escalation yet in a conflict that has already produced the world's largest displacement crisis.
Between 25 October 2025, when fighting intensified across the region, and 22 February 2026, IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix recorded an estimated 132,693 people displaced from Kordofan, spread across 678 locations in 79 localities and 13 states. By 23 June 2026, that count had climbed to 219,319 people across 1,012 locations in 89 localities and 14 states. The increase was not only in scale but in geographic reach: people fleeing Kordofan are now scattering into more states and more communities than at any point since the escalation began.
IOM has named North Kordofan state the current epicentre of the crisis. Civilians have fled major towns including Bara and Om-Rowaba, and rural areas across the state have emptied out as fighting, drone strikes and the threat of attacks on civilians intensify. Arrivals in host communities and informal displacement sites report leaving with little more than what they could carry, adding pressure to areas already stretched thin by earlier waves of displacement from Darfur and other parts of Sudan since the war began in April 2023.
Kordofan has been one of Sudan's principal displacement epicentres since then, and now hosts close to one million internally displaced people, representing 11 per cent of the country's total displaced population. That figure sits inside a national total of roughly 14 million people displaced as of April 2026, according to the United Nations, as Sudan's conflict enters its fourth year — a caseload that continues to outstrip humanitarian systems built for far smaller emergencies, compounded by hunger and repeated attacks on health facilities.
IOM and partner agencies say they have pre-positioned essential household items, hygiene kits and 600 emergency tents, ready to move as soon as access allows. But escalating insecurity and severe funding shortfalls continue to constrain the scale of the response, leaving relief supplies staged and waiting in warehouses while displacement keeps outpacing what agencies can deliver on the ground.
With fighting still spreading into new localities and states, agencies expect the next Displacement Tracking Matrix update to show further increases, keeping Kordofan positioned among the fastest-growing and least-resourced displacement crises inside Sudan's wider emergency.
Indonesian Summary
Pengungsian di wilayah Kordofan, Sudan naik 65 persen dalam empat bulan, menurut laporan IOM 3 Juli 2026 — dari 132.693 orang (per 22 Februari 2026) menjadi 219.319 orang (per 23 Juni 2026), tersebar di lebih dari seribu lokasi di 14 negara bagian. Kordofan Utara jadi episentrum, dengan warga sipil kabur dari kota Bara dan Om-Rowaba akibat pertempuran dan serangan drone. Kordofan kini menampung hampir satu juta pengungsi internal, 11 persen dari total pengungsi Sudan yang mencapai 14 juta orang secara nasional. IOM sudah menyiapkan 600 tenda darurat dan perlengkapan rumah tangga, namun akses yang terhambat keamanan dan kekurangan dana membuat bantuan tertahan di gudang sementara jumlah pengungsi terus bertambah.
IOM, 3 July 2026: Displacement Rising as Crisis Escalates in Kordofan, Sudan
UN News, April 2026: Sudan: 14 million displaced; hunger and attacks on health continue as war enters fourth year
Image: Wikimedia Commons, USAID (public domain)
A 65-per-cent rise in four months is not a plateau; it is acceleration. Sudan's humanitarian system was already stretched thin by Darfur, funding cuts and a health system under repeated attack — Kordofan's surge adds another front without adding new resources to meet it. Pre-positioned supplies sitting in warehouses, waiting on access that insecurity keeps denying, describe a response capacity that exists on paper but not yet on the ground. At this scale, the gap between what agencies can prepare and what they can deliver is itself a measure of the crisis.