Sudan, Darfur, the disaster of access to food: supplies are blocked, thousands of lives are at risk: malnutrition rates among the worst in the world

ROMA – In Zamzam camp in North Darfur, the nutritional situation is dire and continues to worsen day by day. This is what emerged from a screening conducted earlier this month by Sudanese health authorities in collaboration with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which urges the United Nations and international actors involved in the negotiations for humanitarian access to consider all options, including airdrops, for the rapid delivery of food and essential supplies to the area.

“There is no more time now.” “The results of the screening – warns Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of emergency operations at MSF – not only do they confirm the disastrous situation that we and other parties involved have observed and denounced for months, but they also show how it is getting worse day after day. There is no more time – he added – sWe are talking about thousands of children who will die in the coming weeks if they do not receive adequate care and if urgent solutions are not found to allow the arrival of humanitarian aid and essential goods in Zamzam”.

No significant aid has arrived in Zamzam camp. Although there have been some recent positive signs, such as the Geneva peace talks, no significant humanitarian aid has yet reached the people of Zamzam camp and the nearby war-affected town of El-Fasher since the IPC’s Famine Review Committee (FRC) declared the area to be in severe famine conditions on 1 August.

The blockade imposed by the Rapid Support Forces. Most of the roads carrying supplies are controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have made it virtually impossible for therapeutic food, medicine and essential supplies to enter the camp since fighting intensified around El Fasher last May..

Malnutrition is rampant. Among more than 29,000 children under 5 screened during a vaccination campaign in Zamzam camp last week, 10.1% suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), a life-threatening condition, while 34.8% suffer from global acute malnutrition (GAM), which if not treated effectively and promptly could progress to more severe forms of malnutrition, which is currently among the worst in the world.

Crowding in Zamzam camp. Zamzam camp is estimated to house between 300,000 and 500,000 people, many of whom have been displaced multiple times to escape the war that has ravaged Sudan since last year. In El Fasher, where many of the displaced people were living, only one partially operational hospital remains, while the others were damaged or destroyed during the conflict.