Aid Cuts Leave UN Unable to Shelter 60% Fleeing Sudan War

Women walk along a path in South Kordofan, Sudan, where thousands continue to flee ongoing fighting between government and paramilitary forces.

Major cuts to aid budgets have already left people fleeing wars in Sudan and beyond without the assistance and protection they need, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.

Globally, $1.4 billion worth of the agency’s programmes are being shuttered or put on hold, UNHCR said in a new report.

“We can't stop water, you can’t stop sanitation, but we're having to make decisions when it comes, for example, to shelter,” said Dominique Hyde, UNHCR Director of External Relations.

“We have people arriving daily from Sudan, from the Darfur regions… arriving in Chad, unable to be given any shelter.”

In an urgent appeal for flexible funding from donors, Ms. Hyde noted that up to 11.6 million refugees and displaced people risk losing access to direct humanitarian assistance from UNHCR this year. This figure represents about one-third of those reached by the agency last year.

On the Sudan-Chad border, the UN agency is now unable to provide even basic shelter to more than six in ten refugees fleeing the conflict. Thousands more vulnerable people remain stranded in remote border areas in South Sudan. “If we just had a bit more support, we could get them to settlements,” she said.

Due to funding cuts, basic activities have already been severely affected. These include refugee registration, child protection, legal counselling, and prevention of, and response to, gender-based violence.

In South Sudan, 75 per cent of safe spaces for women and girls supported by UNHCR have closed, leaving up to 80,000 refugee women and girls without access to medical care, psychosocial support, legal aid, material assistance, or income-generating activities. This includes survivors of sexual violence, UNHCR noted.

“Behind these numbers are real lives hanging in the balance,” Ms. Hyde said.

“Families are seeing the support they relied on vanish, forced to choose between feeding their children, buying medicines, or paying rent, while hope for a better future slips out of sight. Every sector and operation has been hit, and critical support is being suspended to keep life-saving aid going.”

Many people affected by the war in Sudan have chosen to move from Chad and Egypt to Libya, falling into the hands of people smugglers who dangerously overload boats with desperate migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

“What we're observing now is that arrivals of Sudanese refugees in Europe have increased by about 170 per cent since the beginning of the year compared to the first six months of 2024,” said UNHCR spokesperson Olga Sarrado.

In camps hosting Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, education for around 230,000 children could soon be suspended. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, “UNHCR’s entire health programme is at risk of being shuttered by the end of the year,” Ms. Hyde warned.

In Niger and other emergency zones, reduced financial aid for shelter has left families living in overcrowded conditions or facing homelessness. In Ukraine, financial aid has also been slashed, leaving displaced families unable to afford rent, food, or medical care.

Assistance to returning Afghans has also been affected. Around 1.9 million Afghans have returned or been forced back since the start of the year, yet financial aid for them is barely enough to buy food, let alone secure shelter, undermining reintegration efforts.

Several UNHCR operations hit by severe funding gaps have been forced to curtail investments in asylum systems and regularisation programmes.

In Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Mexico, lack of legal status prolongs insecurity for refugees, exposing them to poverty, exploitation, and abuse, the agency said.

Around one-third of UNHCR’s 550 global offices have been affected by the cuts, Ms. Hyde told journalists in Geneva.

“We're not in a position to do much contingency planning. What we’re able to do is make tough decisions on priorities — and right now, the priorities are dramatic,” she said.

For 2025, UNHCR requires $10.6 billion in funding. So far, only 23 per cent of this amount has been secured.

“Against this backdrop, our teams are focusing efforts on saving lives and protecting those forced to flee,” Ms. Hyde said. “Should additional funding become available, UNHCR has the systems, partnerships, and expertise to rapidly resume and scale up assistance.”