According to the United Nations Hunger Monitoring System, the famine in Zam Zam camp continues and is likely to continue until October.
War in Sudan and restrictions on aid deliveries have led to famine conditions in at least one camp for displaced people in Sudan’s northern Darfur region, according to a report by the global authority on food security.
The UN-backed report on Thursday, which is linked to an internationally recognised standard known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), found that it is possible that parts of northern Darfur – particularly the Zamzam camp – are facing the “worst form of hunger”, known as IPC Phase 5.
IPC Phase 5 is defined as areas where at least one in five people or households are severely food insecure and experiencing hunger and deprivation, which will ultimately lead to severe malnutrition and death.
This is only the third time a famine-related decision has been made since the system was established 20 years ago.
The IPC Partnership includes more than a dozen UN agencies, aid groups and governments that use the IPC as a global reference for analyzing food and nutrition crises.
The report shows how hunger and disease are taking a deadly toll in Sudan, where more than 15 months of war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created the world’s largest internal displacement crisis and left 25 million people – or half the population – in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
The Famine Review Committee (FRC) found in its report that famine continues in the Zamzam camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) and is likely to continue there at least until October.
Sudan: Famine has been confirmed in Zamzam camp in northern Darfur, where 220,000 displaced people are living. 13 other areas in Sudan are also at risk.
Urgent humanitarian assistance is needed to prevent the crisis from worsening and spreading further.
latest @theIPCinfo, pic.twitter.com/JY9Qxyc7gO
— United Nations (@UN) August 1, 2024
Zamzam has a population of 500,000. It is near the town of El-Fasher, which is home to 1.8 million people and is the last significant stronghold against the RSF in Darfur. The RSF has cordoned off the area and no aid has reached the huge camp for months.
The FRC said it was likely that similar conditions were affecting other areas in Darfur, including the displaced persons camps in Abu Shouk and Al Salam.
On Thursday, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym (MSF), condemned “repeated attacks on health facilities” in El-Fashir.
“The organisation calls on all parties to respect health facilities and the civilian population and to allow the urgent delivery of food and medicine to the area,” MSF said in a statement.
The group warned that children in the region were “on the verge of death” because of restrictions on food and medical supplies.
The Reuters news agency reported that some Sudanese people have been forced to eat leaves and mud, and satellite images have shown that cemeteries are rapidly growing in size as starvation and disease spread.
A Reuters analysis of satellite images identified 14 cemeteries in Darfur that have expanded rapidly in recent months. One cemetery in Zamzam grew by 50 percent in the period between March 28 and May 3, faster than in the previous three-and-a-half months.
This analysis was used by the FRC as indirect evidence of increasing mortality rates.
