- Zamzam camp, a site for internally displaced people in North Darfur state, is under a blockade, with no essential supplies or food reaching its over 300,000 residents.
- A screening conducted this month indicates alarming levels of malnutrition in children, while the unavailability of supplies has meant MSF reduces our activities.
- All options must be considered to deliver food and supplies to the camp quickly.
The results of a nutrition screening carried out by the Sudanese health authorities and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) earlier this month in Zamzam camp, North Darfur, indicate that malnutrition in Sudan is only getting worse. MSF urges the UN and international stakeholders involved in negotiating broader humanitarian access to consider all options to quickly deliver food and essential supplies in the area, including by airdrops.
We are talking about thousands of children who will die over the next few weeks without access to adequate treatment and urgent solutions to allow humanitarian aid and essential goods to reach Zamzam.Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of emergency operations for MSF
“Not only do the results confirm the disaster that we and other stakeholders have been observing and alerting on for months, they also indicate that every day things are getting worse and we’re running out of time”, adds Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of emergency operations for MSF. “We are talking about thousands of children who will die over the next few weeks without access to adequate treatment and urgent solutions to allow humanitarian aid and essential goods to reach Zamzam”.
Despite the announcements that gave hope for positive developments, for instance, following the Geneva peace talks, no significant amount of humanitarian relief has reached the population in the Zamzam camp and the nearby war-stricken city of El-Fasher since the IPC Famine Review Committee concluded that famine conditions were prevalent in the area on 1 August this year. Most supply roads are controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who have made it all but impossible to bring therapeutic food, medicines and essential supplies into the camp since the intensification of fighting around El Fasher last May.
There is no time to waste if we want to prevent thousands of deaths. Last week, over 29,000 children under five were screened during a vaccination campaign in Zamzam camp. Results showed that 10.1 percent of the children suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and 34.8 percent suffer from global acute malnutrition (GAM). If not treated effectively and promptly, GAM can develop into a more severe form of malnutrition.
“The malnutrition in Sudan rates found during the screening are massive and likely some of the worst ones in the world currently. It’s even more terrifying as we know from experience that the results are often underestimated when we use only the mid-upper arm circumference criteria like we did here instead of combining it with measuring weight and height,” explains Claudine Mayer, MSF medical referent.
An MSF mass screening carried out in March 2024 revealed an 8.2 percent SAM rate and a 29.4 percent GAM rate, which was already twice as high as the World Health Organisation's 15 percent alert threshold.
The only food available is from pre-existing stocks, which is not sufficient for people living in the area. Food prices are at least three times as high as in the rest of Darfur. Fuel prices are soaring as well, making it very difficult to pump water and run clinics that rely on generators for electricity. Our staff on-site report that for many, it's impossible to rely on more than one meal per day.
“In such a dire situation, we should be scaling up our response: instead, running critically low on supplies, we are reaching breaking point and were recently forced to reduce our activity to focus solely on children in the most severe conditions” says Claudine Mayer. “This means we had to suspend treatment for the less severe forms of malnutrition, who represented an active cohort of 2.700 children, and to put an end to consultations provided to adults and children over five years old, who represented thousands of consultations every month”.
Zamzam camp is estimated to host between 300.000 and 500.00 people, many of them displaced many times over, who are trying to flee the war that has been tearing up their country since last year. In El Fasher, where many of the displaced used to live, only one hospital remains partially standing after the others were damaged or destroyed in the conflict.
“Due to these unconscionable blockages on supplies, we feel like we are leaving behind an increasing number of patients who already have very few options for getting lifesaving medical care”, adds Michel Olivier Lacharité. “If the roads are not an option for getting massive quantities of urgent supplies into the camp, the United Nations should look at every available option. Delaying these supplies meaning causing more deaths – thousands of them, among the most vulnerable.”
