The United Nations migration agency's chief in Sudan says its warehouses are empty after its last stocked trucks reached Darfur this week, a sign that the world's largest displacement crisis is running out of basic shelter supplies even as aid agencies report better access to the people who need them.
"Just yesterday, we had 16 trucks arriving in Darfur, but they were just the last that we had in our stocks," Mohamed Refaat, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Sudan, said on Friday from Khartoum, UN News reported. "Our supplies are running out," he said, and "our warehouses are completely empty now." The trucks arrived on Thursday; the disclosure came on Friday. Refaat was describing IOM's own inventory, not the whole aid system: IOM and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, say in a joint statement that they are still working with partners to maintain shared supply pipelines, and Refaat said IOM is still moving stock into hard-to-reach areas.
Access has improved; stocks have not
A year ago, Refaat said, briefings on Sudan focused on access as well as funding. Now humanitarians have more access and can reach more people, he told the Geneva briefing, according to the UN's record. Danger and logistics still weigh on deliveries. The joint statement says continuing fighting, insecurity and drone attacks restrict operations and that damaged infrastructure hampers moving and pre-positioning supplies. UNHCR said drones struck its trucks twice this year, and that fires in White Nile state destroyed emergency shelter for more than 1,300 families in April and July, including 50 tonnes of blankets, sleeping mats and solar lamps.
An estimated 15.4 million people urgently need emergency shelter and essential household items, the joint statement says. Funding means agencies can prioritise help for just 10 per cent of them, and "so far, only 936,000 people have received assistance", about 6 per cent by our calculation. The first figure is what agencies can plan to cover; the second is who has been reached. UNHCR said its collective shelter response needs $179 million this year and is 35 per cent funded. Sudan's overall 2026 humanitarian plan asks for $2.9 billion and is about 47 per cent funded.
A shortage that was forecast
The cliff was flagged weeks ago. On 14 September, IOM warned that shelter, sanitation and household relief items in its Common Humanitarian Pipeline, the shared logistics system serving UN agencies and more than 100 registered partners, were expected to run out by the end of September without donor support, and that warehousing and operations could be sustained only until December. It said $15 million would keep the pipeline at minimum capacity for 12 months, reaching 305,000 people, and $27 million would restore roughly 2025 levels, reaching 570,000. The pipeline's reach, it said, had already fallen from more than one million people in 2024 to 804,000 in 2025 and 330,000 so far in 2026. The September warning describes the risk at that time, not a verified account of funding received since.
Going home to damaged homes
The shortage lands on a population that is moving. More than 5.2 million people have returned to their areas of origin, the vast majority of them previously displaced inside Sudan, the joint statement says; about 8.6 million remain displaced and more than 4.6 million have fled abroad. Many returnees find homes destroyed or looted and little healthcare, electricity or water, the agencies say, and may have to leave again. Refaat noted that the displacement count has been falling because of returns, but that homes were "not necessarily available" when people went back. The agencies describe shelter help as often the first step in rebuilding a life after return.
New displacement continues. UNHCR's deputy representative, Abubakarr Jalloh, told the briefing about Amira, who left Kurmuk in Blue Nile state on foot in the dark with her three children and took days, walking and riding crowded trucks, to reach Wad Madani, where displacement sites were already full. She had been sleeping in the open, he said, until UNHCR brought a tent.
Winter sets a deadline. Nights in Darfur can be bitterly cold, UNHCR said, and two in five displaced families are living under plastic sheeting. UNHCR also reported that heavy rains this summer had destroyed hundreds of tents. Food competes with shelter for the same money: Jalloh said the price of staple grain rose by up to 40 per cent in September alone, and that "every Sudanese pound spent on food is money they cannot spend on a blanket".
Refaat said IOM does not have enough stock to support people if they move again, and called for flexible funding to keep emergency supplies flowing. The clearest finding is narrow: the agency that runs the shared shelter pipeline says it has no stock left in its warehouses. Which items are exhausted, and when new supplies would arrive, were not disclosed.