Millions of people in Sudan risk going without emergency shelter as aid stocks run out, two U.N. agencies warned Friday, saying that resources allow them to prioritize only about a tenth of the 15.4 million people who need shelter and basic household supplies. The warning covers families still fleeing the civil war as well as people returning to homes that are no longer habitable.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, and the International Organization for Migration said in a Nov. 6 joint statement that 936,000 people had received assistance so far. That is roughly 6 percent of the estimated need, a smaller share than the already restricted group agencies aim to help. The figures describe a shelter response struggling to replenish supplies, not a claim that 90 percent of Sudan’s people have no housing.

IOM’s Sudan mission chief, Mohamed Refaat, said his agency’s warehouses were empty. Reuters reported that he warned internal displacement could rise again despite recent returns. The immediate problem is whether agencies can maintain deliveries as fresh needs emerge, rather than simply how much aid they have distributed earlier in the year.

Two funding gaps, with different measures

The shelter appeal is part of a much larger humanitarian operation. The agencies put Sudan’s overall 2026 response requirement at $2.9 billion, intended to assist 20.4 million people out of 33.7 million assessed as needing humanitarian help. About 47 percent of that appeal had been funded, according to their statement. That percentage covers the broader response, rather than shelter alone.

At the Geneva briefing, UNHCR deputy representative Abubakarr Jalloh said the collective shelter response required $179 million and was only 35 percent funded. Refaat said 16 trucks had reached Darfur the previous day carrying the last of IOM’s available stock. A delivery can therefore show that a route is functioning while also marking the exhaustion of the supplies needed for the next convoy.

The agencies called for funding that is predictable and flexible enough to sustain shared supply arrangements, local partners and emergency stocks. Money already committed to one part of an operation cannot be assumed to fill every shortage elsewhere. The overall appeal’s funding rate does not measure how much shelter material is available in a warehouse or how many families have received it.

Returning home does not end the need

The agencies estimate that about 8.6 million people remain displaced inside Sudan and more than 4.6 million have crossed its borders. More than 5.2 million have returned to their areas of origin, mostly after displacement within the country. These are different population measures and should not be added together as a count of people currently living away from home.

Return can lower the number recorded as internally displaced without producing a habitable house. Africanews, reporting with AFP and AP, described families finding damaged housing, infrastructure and basic services. Refaat warned that a return to a place without usable accommodation could be followed by another departure. That makes return movements an uncertain measure of recovery.

For the shelter response, the relevant question is what people find at their destination. A family that has regained access to its neighborhood may still need materials, bedding and household equipment. The agencies’ warning concerns both people seeking a new place of refuge and those trying to re-establish a home.

Unsafe housing and lost purchasing power

The shortage predates Friday’s warning. A September British assessment, drawing on U.N. and other humanitarian sources, described displaced people living in overcrowded settlements, public buildings and structurally unsafe accommodation. It found that insecurity over occupancy and the risk of eviction could force further moves. The assessment’s underlying information stops in August, so it provides background rather than a new count of conditions in November.

The review also cautioned against equating functioning markets with affordable shelter. Where materials can be bought, inflation and limited access to cash can still prevent families from purchasing them. In places with fighting, interrupted supply routes and uncertain rights to land or housing add further obstacles. Delivering a tent addresses an immediate need; it does not resolve all the conditions that make a longer stay possible.

A supply crisis with protection consequences

Jalloh said women and children made up three-quarters of displaced people and described how the lack of privacy, lighting and safe sanitation increased risks. He also warned of cold winter nights in Darfur and northern Sudan. The problem extends beyond exposure to weather: shelter and household supplies affect whether people can sleep, cook and move around a displacement site safely.

The new warning does not give a date when every agency’s stock will be exhausted. It does establish that IOM reported empty warehouses while the joint response remained far below the scale of need. Replenished stocks, deliveries and the number of people actually reached will show whether new funding changes that position. Falling displacement totals alone will not establish that returning families have somewhere safe to live.