October 10, 2024 — Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been forced to stop outpatient treatment for 5,000 children with acute malnutrition in Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, Sudan, because the warring parties have blocked deliveries of food, medicines, and other essential supplies for months.
Among the 5,000 children are 2,900 with severe acute malnutrition. Only MSF's 80-bed hospital remains functioning in the camp to treat children at the greatest risk of dying. Supplies ran low at the end of September.
"There is an urgent need for a massive supply of nutritional products and food to help the population, which is currently in a catastrophic situation," said Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF head of emergency operations. "MSF is calling on the various players—governments, allies of the parties to the conflict, the Rapid Support Forces, the Sudanese Armed Forces, and the Joint Forces—to facilitate humanitarian aid delivery to the camp."
Some limited supplies have arrived in recent weeks, including medical supplies that MSF was able to transport from the nearby town of Tawila, but the quantities remain far too low to meet the needs of people suffering from malnutrition in Zamzam camp, which has a population of approximately 450,000.
The crisis has attracted broader international attention as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee concluded in August that a famine was underway in Zamzam camp. MSF's own malnutrition assessments conducted through multiple surveys earlier this year found that 34 percent of children were malnourished, and that a child was dying of causes linked to malnutrition every two hours on average. The current rate of deaths among children is unknown because the crisis also limits MSF’s ability to collect new data.
"What will happen to these children if the warring parties don’t let urgently needed aid in now? We simply don't have enough therapeutic food in the camp to continue," said Avril Benoît, CEO of MSF USA. "We’ve been sounding the alarm about emergency conditions in Zamzam camp since February, but the international community has failed to act."
Providing a month's worth of emergency food (around 500 calories a day per person) to the 450,000 people in Zamzam requires about 2,000 tons of rations, which would require 100 truckloads per month.
"In the last few days, we've seen some positive signs, with trucks arriving after months of almost complete blockade around the camp," Lacharité said. "These are positive signs, and we can see that the parties to the conflict recognize the seriousness of the situation and are starting to let trucks arrive. However, these quantities are insufficient. If we are to have a massive response, the aid agencies will have to step up their efforts, and the allies of the parties to the conflict will have to convince them to ensure that this delivery continues over the coming months."
