KHARTOUM, December 2, 2024—Sudan’s largest displacement camp is under attack, with intense shelling by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the parties of the war in Sudan that escalated in April 2023. The attack, which began in the early evening on December 1, has created a living nightmare for displaced people in Zamzam camp, with casualties, panic, and mass displacement.
On December 1, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams in the camp received eight injured people, including women and children as young as 4 years old, with severe injuries such as chest trauma and fractures. Four critically injured patients were referred to another facility this morning, just before shelling resumed and struck near an MSF field hospital and a market.
The situation is beyond chaotic: Patients and medical staff are leaving the camp and trying to run for their lives. MSF’s hospital in the camp is now empty, with the last three ICU patients—still dependent on oxygen—evacuated under dangerous conditions.
“Not only have people been starving, but they are also now being bombarded and forced to flee again,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF’s head of emergency operations. “We're concerned about [people’s] safety, including our staff, and we urgently call for the protection of patients, civilians, medical teams, and health facilities in Zamzam camp. Safe passage must also be guaranteed for those escaping this violence.”
What is Zamzam camp?
Zamzam is a camp of at least 450,000 people near North Darfur's regional capital, El Fasher. It was originally formed by people fleeing ethnically targeted violence in the region in 2003. Ever since war broke out between Sudan's military and paramilitary forces in April 2023, camp residents have been cut off from vital humanitarian aid and medical care. UN agencies and international aid organizations evacuated North Darfur after the war began and have maintained only a limited presence since then.
MSF has treated thousands of children for malnutrition in Zamzam camp this year, although MSF’s activities have been limited by shortages of supplies. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee concluded that famine conditions were prevalent in Zamzam camp on August 1, 2024.
Most supply roads into Zamzam are controlled by 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 in May 2024.
In January, MSF conducted a rapid nutrition and mortality assessment of 400 households in Zamzam camp and found alarming numbers of children dying from malnutrition. We then carried out mass screenings of more than 46,000 children in March and April, and found that a staggering 30 percent were suffering from acute malnutrition, including 8 percent with severe cases.
In the first week of September, 10 percent of children under 5 years old screened during a vaccination campaign in Zamzam camp were found to suffer from severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition, while 34.8 percent suffered from global acute malnutrition.
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