CAIRO (AP) — Famine is threatening more areas in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region, a global hunger monitoring group said Thursday as an attack by paramilitary forces on a military hospital in the country's south killed 22 people, including the hospital’s director and three members of its medical staff.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been in the throes of war after a power struggle erupted between the military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. The conflict has triggered what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, released a new report saying that acute malnutrition has reached famine levels in two more towns in Darfur. It stopped short of confirming a full famine in the towns.
Last year, the group said that people in Darfur’s major city of el-Fasher, overrun by the paramilitary forces after an 18-month siege, were enduring famine.
The attack Thursday in the town of Kouik in South Kordofan province, also left eight people wounded, the Sudan Doctors’ Network, a group of medical professionals tracking the war said. It was not immediately clear how many of the casualties were civilians.
The attack was “not an isolated incident, but rather part of a series of attacks that have plagued South Kordofan," the network said, adding that the assaults have left "several hospitals inoperable.”
The U.N. estimates that over 40,000 people have been killed in the war in Sudan, but aid agencies consider that the true number could be many times higher. Over 14 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
The IPC report said famine-level malnutrition has been registered in the towns of Umm Baru and Kernoi in North Darfur province. In November, the group said that along with el-Fasher, the city of Kadugli in South Kordofan was also enduring famine. At the time, it also said 20 other areas across Sudan were at risk of famine.
In Umm Baru, nearly 53% of children between aged between 6 months and nearly 5 years suffered from acute malnutrition, the IPC said — almost double the famine threshold, which stands at 30%. In Kernoi, 32% of children are suffering from malnutrition, the group said.
“These alarming rates suggest an increased risk of excess mortality and raise concern that nearby areas may be experiencing similar catastrophic conditions,” the report said.
Since the eruption of Sudan’s civil war, the IPC has confirmed famine in a total of seven areas. The group said it could not confirm a full famine in Umm Baru and Kernoi as access and lack of data makes it difficult to confirm the other two thresholds — access to food and mortality — that need to be reached for a famine to be confirmed.
The fall of el-Fasher in October 2025 to the RSF set off an exodus of people to nearby towns, straining the resources of neighboring communities and driving up food insecurity rates, the report said.
The IPC has confirmed famine only a few times, most recently in 2025 in northern Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war. It also confirmed famine in Somalia in 2011, and in South Sudan in 2017 and 2020.
In 2024, famine had struck five other areas in North Darfur and also Sudan’s Nuba Mountains region.
The IPC report also warned that more people might face extreme hunger in Kordofan, where the conflict has disrupted food production and supply lines in besieged towns and isolated areas.
“An immediate and sustained ceasefire is critical to avert further destitution, starvation, and death in the affected parts of Sudan,” pled the Rome-based group.
According to experts, famine is determined in areas where deaths from malnutrition-related causes reach at least two people, or four children under 5 years of age, per 10,000 people; at least one in five people or households severely lack food and face starvation; and at least 30% of children under age 5 suffer from acute malnutrition based on a weight-to-height measurement — or 15% based on upper-arm circumference.
Since the RSF overran el-Fasher, which had been one of the army’s last strongholds in Darfur, fighting has recently concentrated in various areas of Kordofan. Lately, the Sudanese military began making gains in Kordofan after breaking a siege in Kadugli and the neighboring town of Dilling.
On Tuesday, the Sudanese military announced that it had opened a crucial road between Dilling and Kadugli, which had been under siege by the RSF since the start of the war. The RSF launched a drone attack Tuesday that hit a medical center in Kadugli, killing 15 people including seven children, according to Sudan Doctors Network.
Also this week, the United States and the U.N. said they are seeking to rally international support for humanitarian aid to Sudan, kicking off a new Sudan Humanitarian Fund with $700 million in contributions from the United Arab Emirates and the U.S.
The Trump administration said Tuesday it would contribute $200 million to the initiative from a basket of $2 billion it set aside late last year to fund humanitarian projects around the world. The UAE said it would contribute $500 million. Saudi Arabia and several other participants promised they would make pledges but did not specify amounts.
Associated Press writer Fay Abuelgasim in Cairo contributed to this report.
This story has been corrected throughout to say that the expert group did not confirm a full famine in the Darfur towns of Umm Baru and Kernoi but said that malnutrition there had reached famine-levels.
FILE - People fill water containers at a free distribution point due to water outages in Khartoum, Sudan, on Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)
LONDON (AP) — Keir Starmer never met Jeffrey Epstein. But the British prime minister’s job is under threat because of the fallout from the late sex offender’s global web of relationships.
Friendship with Epstein has already brought down a British royal – Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew – and U.K ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson, fired by Starmer over his links to the financier.
Now new revelations have plunged Starmer’s center-left government into turmoil.
The prime minister is facing mounting pressure from within his governing Labour Party over his decision in 2024 to appoint Mandelson, a veteran Labour politician, to the Washington role despite his ties to Epstein. Just how close those ties were has been exposed in newly released documents that have dominated headlines in the U.K.
Starmer apologized on Thursday to Epstein’s victims, saying Mandelson had repeatedly lied and “portrayed Epstein as someone he barely knew.”
“I am sorry, sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you," Starmer said. “Sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him.”
Critics believe it’s an error that could end Starmer’s premiership.
“He is now essentially a boxer on the ropes,” said Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester. “His administration could fall over tomorrow, or it could stagger on for months or even years. (But) his authority is seriously shot.”
Starmer fired Mandelson, 72, in September after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the late financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor. Epstein committed suicide in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.
Documents published last week by the U.S. Justice Department contain new revelations, including papers suggesting Mandelson shared sensitive government information with Epstein after the 2008 global financial crisis, and records of payments totaling $75,000 in 2003 and 2004 from Epstein to accounts linked to Mandelson or his husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva.
There are also chatty, jokey messages pointing to a much closer relationship with Epstein than Mandelson had disclosed.
British police are investigating Mandelson over potential misconduct in public office. He is not accused of any sexual offenses and says he never witnessed any sexual wrongdoing,
Mandelson was chosen as ambassador because his trade expertise, contacts and mastery of the political “dark arts” were considered assets in dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump's second administration.
Critics say Starmer was, at best, naive in not recognizing the risks involved. Aside from his association with Epstein, Mandelson twice had to resign from senior government posts because of scandals over money or ethics.
In the House of Commons on Wednesday, Starmer answered “Yes” when asked whether the vetting process in 2024 had revealed that Mandelson's friendship with Epstein continued after the latter's 2008 conviction.
The answer sent shock waves through the chamber. On Thursday Starmer said he had meant only that it had “been known publicly for some time that they knew each other.”
The government plans to release files related to the vetting process that it hopes will exonerate Starmer and show Mandelson lied. But the government is not entirely in control of the process. Some documents are likely to be held back because of the police investigation. Others will be reviewed by Parliament’s independent Intelligence and Security Committee for potential national security implications.
Labour lawmaker Paula Barker said the prime minister “has shown that his judgment is questionable.”
“I think he has a very long way to go to rebuild trust and confidence with the public, and trust and confidence within our party," she told the BBC.
Starmer has faced a string of setbacks since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024. He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living. He pledged a return to honest government after 14 years of scandal-tarred Conservative rule, but has been beset by missteps and U-turns over welfare cuts and other unpopular policies.
Despite his struggles on the home front, Starmer has been praised for his work on the world stage. He has played a key role in maintaining European support for Ukraine, and in keeping Trump engaged with peace efforts and NATO. He has also worked to rebuild ties with the European Union after the U.K.’s acrimonious departure from the bloc in 2020.
Labour consistently lags behind the hard-right Reform UK party in opinion polls, and its failure to improve had sparked talk of a leadership challenge, even before the Mandelson revelations.
The Epstein files may have brought a challenge closer, but key rivals are holding back, for now.
Senior lawmaker Angela Rayner, a popular figure on the left of the party, is still stinging after being forced to resign as deputy prime minister in September for failing to pay enough tax on a home purchase. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, a star of Labour’s right, was close to Mandelson in the past.
Some Labour lawmakers are calling for Starmer to fire his top aide Morgan McSweeney, a powerful backroom figure mistrusted by many Labour lawmakers, and widely seen as a key force behind Mandelson’s appointment.
Legislator Karl Turner said the prime minister should “get rid of those advisers who frankly have given terrible advice to him over these weeks and months.”
On Thursday Starmer vowed to carry on doing the “vital work” of governing.
But more potential flashpoints loom. Labour may lose a long-held seat in Parliament in a Feb. 26 special election in Greater Manchester. The party is also expected to fare badly in regional and local elections in May.
Ford said that “whenever the moment comes when Starmer does finally leave, either of his own volition or because his MPs oust him ... It will all be traced back to appointing Peter Mandelson."
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer adjusts his glasses as he waits to deliver his speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Britain's Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, speaks during a reception at the ambassador's residence on Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
