Civil war and a blockade of humanitarian aid by warring forces in Sudan have caused famine – the worst possible situation for food shortages, when there are already a significant number of deaths from starvation – in one of the country’s largest camps for displaced people, a leading committee of food security experts recently concluded. The situation in Zamzam, home to at least half a million people, has been critical for months, but has deteriorated further in recent weeks due to increased violence in the area, North Darfur, and flooding caused by the rainy season.
The fact that this is the third time that a famine has been declared in 20 years – in Somalia in 2011 and South Sudan in 2017 – underlines the gravity of the situation in the African country, devastated after a year and four months of fighting between the regular army, led by General Abdefatá al Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The Famine Review Committee, made up of independent experts, has prepared the report on the dire situation in Sudan at the request of the international Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, made up of UN agencies and other organisations. In addition to Zamzam, the committee considers it likely that other displacement camps around the North Darfur capital, El Fasher, including two of the largest, Abu Shouk and Al Salam, are also suffering from famine. It has warned that other areas of Sudan are experiencing similar conditions. Across the country, more than 25 million people, representing more than half the population, are suffering from acute levels of hunger, and of these, more than 750,000 are in catastrophic conditions – the stages before the declaration of the worst-case scenario.
North Darfur, one of the five states that make up the Darfur region, is one of the parts of Sudan where the humanitarian crisis is most serious and persistent. The situation has worsened since April, when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces launched an offensive in El Fasher, the only capital of Darfur outside their control, which is still ongoing and has been accompanied by an almost total siege. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled, with a significant number seeking refuge in Zamzam, some 15 kilometres from the city.
The committee of experts says one of the main causes of the famine in Zamzam is the difficulty in making humanitarian and commercial deliveries. Currently, only one of the 11 routes connecting Darfur with Chad and South Sudan is officially open and deliveries from other parts of the country are hampered by fighting and obstacles from the army and paramilitaries. This blockage has driven up food prices in Zamzam, where shortages of water, gas and cooking utensils make food preparation difficult.
“The hunger crisis in Zamzam camp is a natural result of the lack of humanitarian aid due to the closure of roads and border crossings, which has led to an increase in the prices of consumer goods and the absence of humanitarian groups,” confirms by telephone Saddam Abkar Safi, a member of the Zamzam emergency response unit, formed after the outbreak of the civil war. “In the markets, hunger is a natural consequence of the lack of humanitarian aid due to the closure of roads and border crossings, which has led to an increase in the prices of consumer goods and the absence of humanitarian groups.” [aún] There is food, but there are many displaced people who do not have the resources to buy food,” he explains.
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Aid organisations have been warning for months of the looming catastrophe in Zamzam. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the only health provider operating in the camp, estimated in January that a child was dying every two hours, and found that nearly a quarter of children were suffering from acute malnutrition and 7% from severe, life-threatening acute malnutrition. Among children aged between six months and two years, that percentage rose to almost 40% and 15% respectively. Further mass screening in March and April revealed that the situation had worsened.
The Famine Review Committee notes that, due to access limitations, its experts have not made direct measurements or collected new data on factors such as food consumption, nutrition and mortality in Zamzam, so they rely heavily on MSF reports, but the organization does not explain why it has taken months to declare famine. In this regard, the international community’s warning mechanisms have been criticized because by the time they are activated it is already too late to avoid a catastrophe. Despite the delay, NGOs and specialists believe that this classification could help alleviate the underfunding of the humanitarian response in Sudan and put pressure on the UN Security Council to adopt ambitious measures.
One of the measures considered most effective would be to allow humanitarian agencies to deliver aid to Sudan through border crossings, even if they are not authorized by the military actors, who act as the government. de facto. On Tuesday, at a meeting of the Security Council, Sudanese representative Al Harith Idriss, said he would cooperate in this regard “if there is famine”. Since the beginning of the war, the army has systematically prevented the delivery of aid through areas controlled by paramilitaries who have shown themselves to be open to collaborating with the UN, although they have attacked humanitarian workers and carried out massive looting.
Two days before the Security Council meeting, MSF said it only had enough therapeutic food to treat the malnourished children in Zamzam for the next two weeks – and that was one week ago. This has forced the NGO to limit the number of children it treats, even though this means that those suffering from severe malnutrition could die within three to six weeks. Three MSF trucks with medical supplies destined for Zamzam and El Fasher have been blocked by paramilitaries for over a month.
The dramatic situation in the camp has deteriorated further in recent days with the onset of the rainy season, which has caused widespread flooding affecting residential areas and key humanitarian facilities, according to a recent analysis of satellite images by Yale University’s Center for Humanitarian Research. In addition, on Sunday, according to the Darfur Network for Human Rights, the army bombed Zamzam for the first time, which until now had remained safe from hostilities.
As in other war-torn parts of Sudan, the committee of experts notes that traders are almost the only ones still able to access Zamzam, which keeps a certain amount of life going in the markets, which have become virtually the only source of food for a population that relies heavily on savings and remittances. In addition, with the reduction in the activity of humanitarian agencies, community groups are still mobilized to distribute some of the few supplies available.
In this context, and given the prospect of the situation worsening in the coming months – even if the fighting stops but there is no free access to humanitarian aid – the committee of experts has recommended promoting and protecting local support networks. “All the displaced people in Zamzam camp are beneficiaries, but aid is not enough, so we have to focus on those most in need, that is, we choose the displaced people whose situation is the most difficult to provide them with help,” says Safi, from Zamzam’s emergency response unit.
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