Abdullah Muqaddam Toto arrived at the Goz al-Salam camp on the morning of Dec. 19, 2025, wearing a light blue shirt and old trousers. Four people trailed behind him: his wife and three children. They had fled fighting in South Kordofan, expecting to find U.N. teams, organized tents, and the food rations that Sudan’s U.N.-coordinated humanitarian response plan had promised to feed displaced Sudanese people.

What he found instead were local volunteers hauling pots across a dusty camp south of the Sudanese city of Kosti, trying to close a gap that international aid agencies had left behind.

The Goz al-Salam camp stretches across four blocks: A, B, C, and D, with families packed tightly into rows of fabric tents sealed with a thin layer of plastic. The pathways between them are narrow and rarely quiet: conversations overlap, food lines form early, and arguments regularly rise and fall.

By mid-morning, eyes turn to the dirt road leading into camp, watching for the young volunteers who carry the day’s only guaranteed meal in large pots and cardboard boxes to feed displaced Sudanese people. What arrives depends on what can be sourced — usually a mix of fava beans and bread, rice, lentils, or a meat stew. Children sit on the ground to eat immediately. Mothers carry portions back to the tents where the rest of the family waits.

Before the war, Toto ran a small bakery in South Kordofan. His income was modest, but it fed his family. Now he rises before dawn to join a line of women and children at the camp’s only water point, which operates four hours a day. He carries a jerrican. His face, like those around him, is pale and dusty, as he tries to help feed displaced Sudanese people.

A Stretched System Struggling to Feed Displaced Sudanese Communities

Sudan was already the world’s largest displacement crisis before deep U.S. foreign assistance cuts in 2025, part of the Trump administration’s broader dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. But while budgets were slashed, needs rose. By December 2025, 33.7 million people inside the country were in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations, demonstrating the urgency of supporting and feeding displaced Sudanese people.

Read the full article about feeding displaced Sudanese people by Aunnab Elman at Devex.