FAMINE IN SUDAN

As millions of Sudanese seek safety amidst conflict, the UN’s children’s fund and food aid agency warn of famine in the Zamzam IDP camp in Darfur and work with partners to intensify humanitarian aid.

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By Francesco Bartolini

For twenty years, the monitoring system of the Famine Review Committee (FRC) has been responsible for declaring when regions are in a state of famine and alerting them of the potential risk in case of non-intervention.

Camp Zamzam in northern Darfur has fallen into the former category twice already. For the first time in seven years, after more than fifteen months of war and limitations on humanitarian aid, the FRC has confirmed a state of famine for a third time.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declares that over half of Sudan’s population, 25.6 million, are in a state of acute hunger, 775,000 of which are in a ‘catastrophic’ level.

The latter number classifies for IPC Phase Five, when households cannot meet basic needs regardless of intervention and cases of destitution, starvation and even death are present in the locality.

Hundreds of thousands of families and children have suffered severe malnutrition and infections across 13 regions in Sudan.

In a statement, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell expressed fear for their safety, calling upon increased intervention to mitigate effects of the man-made famine.

Other regions include the capital, Khartoum, Jazira, Kordofan and Blue Nile, all under intense military tension hindering possibilities of humanitarian aid.

Concretely, conflict around the Sudan’s capital of Sennar State, Sinja, has cut off important aid routes and displaced several hundred thousand people.

“Sudan’s children cannot wait” is Russell’s underlying message to instigate financial support to the regions in need, as international communities seek unification and effective diplomacy in attempts to rectify causes and consequences of the famine.

On Sunday, Sudan’s government denied reports that people in the Zamzam camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) are experiencing famine.

While UNICEF’s efforts to deliver emergency food and supplies to children in severe states of malnutrition has been successful in part—around four thousand children were treated in Al-Fashir in one month—the consistency of this process remains highly unpredictable.

In the same statement, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain stressed the importance of opening new routes to allow the passthrough of provisions to regions in need, calling an immediate ceasefire as the only way to stop an even larger scale catastrophe.

UNICEF’s data shows its collaboration with partner organisations, expanding over 152 localities in Sudan, has been successful in delivering safe drinking water, health supplies and malnutrition screenings to at least three million children in 2024 alone.

Moreover, the number of Outpatient Therapeutic Programmes rose to 1,739 in June 2024, treating almost 150,000 malnourished children via several lifesaving services this year.