One Million Sudanese Refugees Face Deeper Aid Cuts in Chad

More than one million Sudanese refugees in Chad face immediate cuts to food, water, shelter, health care and protection services unless donors close a $428 million funding gap, the World Food Programme and the U.N. refugee agency said.

WFP and UNHCR said Chad now hosts 1.3 million Sudanese refugees, with more than 900,000 arriving since war began in Sudan in 2023. Nearly 15,000 more people crossed the border in the first months of 2026, the agencies said, even as resources for existing camps and settlements thinned further.

The pressure is showing in basic survival figures. Current UNHCR funding allows only four out of every 10 refugees to receive basic assistance, the agencies said. WFP said it has already cut food support in half for most refugees despite reaching more than one million people in refugee-hosting areas.

In eastern Chad, the shortfall is no longer an abstract budget line. WFP and UNHCR said about 80,000 families are without shelter because of funding shortages. In Oure Cassoni in Ennedi Est province, refugees are surviving on less than half the minimum daily water requirement, according to the agencies.

The agencies said more than 243,000 people remain stranded in eastern border areas because there is not enough money to move them inland to formal settlements. Families there are sleeping in the open or in basic shelters, exposed to disease, insecurity and harsh weather, the statement said.

WFP’s Chad country director, Sarah Gordon-Gibson, said reduced food deliveries would force refugees into “devastating coping strategies.” Patrice Ahouansou, UNHCR’s representative in Chad, said the funding gaps would bring “deeper cuts, worse conditions and even greater suffering” if donors did not act quickly.

The regional framing around the crisis is sharply uneven. In Chad and Sudan coverage, the story is about queues for water, crowded classrooms and mothers cutting meals. In donor capitals, it often appears as another funding appeal in a season of many crises. OCHA said 33.7 million people inside Sudan will need humanitarian assistance in 2026, the highest number globally.

That mismatch matters because Chad has kept its border open while carrying a burden far beyond its own means. WFP and UNHCR said one in 13 people in Chad is now a refugee, and in the country’s east the figure is one in three.

The agencies also warned that women and young children are being hit first. Nutrition support for new arrivals is under strain, health centres are overstretched, and education systems are overwhelmed, with many classrooms holding more than 100 children per teacher, according to their statement.

The funding crisis is colliding with timing. As the Sudan war approaches its third year, camps in Chad are still receiving new arrivals. Any prolonged disruption to aid before the next rainy period would raise the risk of disease outbreaks, transport bottlenecks and sharper food stress, aid officials have warned in recent months.

For now, the numbers remain stark and specific: $428 million is missing, most refugees are already receiving half-rations, and two U.N. agencies say the next six months will decide whether Chad’s open-border response can still function at scale.