Children ‘at death’s door’ as famine declared in Sudanese refugee camp

Famine has been declared in a Sudanese displacement camp in the besieged city of El Fasher.

About 600,000 people are estimated to be living in camps just outside the capital of North Darfur.

The UN-backed famine early warning systems network (Fews Net) said on Thursday it had evidence to confirm people were starving to death in Zamzam camp, and it was possible the worst levels of hunger were also present in Abu Shouk and Al Salam camps.

Fews Net only declares famine after it has confirmed mortality rates have reached extreme levels, which it says have been evidenced in Zamzam for up to two months.

El Fasher has been besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries for months as it tries to capture the city from the Sudanese army, having already taken control of other major cities in the western region of Darfur.

“Without an end to this conflict, and in the absence of large-scale humanitarian food assistance, extreme human suffering will persist,” said Fews Net decision support adviser Lark Walters.

The population of El Fasher’s displacement camps, formed by the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, has swollen in the past year as people have fled the RSF in other parts of the region.

Fews Net said the war and RSF’s siege of the city has restricted the transport of food and the ability to grow it. The population had long exhausted the last harvest from late 2023. Staple grains now cost up to 180% above the three-year average.

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Mohammed Qazilbash, the Sudan country director for the child rights charity Plan International, said no food assistance has reached Zamzam since April, when the RSF intensified its attacks on El Fasher.

“This situation was entirely preventable, and the international community must not waste another moment. With the lean season under way, without urgent action, the number of children and families facing starvation will only grow,” Qazilbash said.

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said the RSF has been holding its trucks on the road outside El Fasher, preventing medicine and food reaching the city.

Stéphane Doyon, who heads MSF’s emergency response in Sudan, said: “Because these supplies have not yet arrived, we only have enough therapeutic food left to last another few weeks. Already, many children there are at death’s door. These supplies are needed to save their lives.”

MSF also said El Fasher’s Saudi hospital , which it supports, was hit by shelling this week – the 10th incident involving hospitals in the city since April.