(translated by Gaffar Mohammud Saeneen; received June 17, 2024)
[Eric: This report speaks for itself—the El Fasher region of North Darfur is descending further into catastrophic famine. I interpolate only a few brief comments and an excerpt from a May 2024 update on malnutrition in Zamzam from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). For information on how to help, see the end of this report…]
As we have witnessed—and as the whole world is finally witnessing—North Darfur State, its capital, El Fasher, and its people have been the victims of relentless, profoundly inhumane war crimes, driven by a hateful racism against the residents of the city and its surrounding areas.
The notorious Janjaweed militias, now the so-called “Rapid Support Forces” (RSF), after they failed to seize the city of El Fasher, resorted to revenge against civilians: physical liquidation by murder, deliberate bombing of hospitals and citizens’ homes, and finally a desperate attempt to cut off the only water source that feeds the city of El Fasher—another crime added to their long list of crimes.
What seems strange to us is that while these heinous crimes are being committed in broad daylight against defenseless civilians, the world is largely silent…and why? Where are the human rights defenders? Where is international law? Where is our common spirituality and humanity? Why is there no intervention to save the lives of innocent people who die without reason and without understanding of why they have been killed?
For every day, people are killed everywhere: inside the displacement camps; inside their homes; and they are killed on public roads. They die without hope or spiritual solace. They also suffer from hunger, thirst, fear, and disease. The suffering intensifies in the displacement camps, especially among the orphan children who suffer from the loss of their families under conditions of war.
These are the questions of the people of the camps, the questions of the women of Darfur, and the questions of the people of the Zamzam camp.
Since the attack on El Fasher which began on May 10th and has continued through the writing of this report, the people of El Fasher city and the surrounding areas of the displaced camps have experienced extremely dangerous insecurity and a deeply perilous humanitarian crisis—on a scale that the country has never witnessed before. As a result of these barbaric and unprovoked attacks, which continue to this day, an unknown number of innocent citizens, including children, women, and the elderly, have been killed as a result of bombing that deliberately targeted densely populated civilian neighborhoods; several hundred others were injured.
This ongoing attack on El Fasher—driven by pure hatred, racism, and contempt for humanity—has not spared IDP camps for the displaced, hospitals, places of worship, markets, schools, state offices, pharmacies, shelter centers, and even domestic animals. This continuous barbaric bombardment with heavy artillery shelling for over a month has forced most of the residents of the northeastern neighborhoods of the city of El Fasher to flee towards the southwestern neighborhoods. Some of them fled to the Zamzam camp, others fled within the city, others towards the Tawila area, and yet other areas in the southwest of El Fasher.
What the people of El Fasher have lived through during these barbaric attacks cannot be adequately described. In addition to countless deaths and injuries, the rapacious Rapid Support Forces people’s occupied homes, stole property, and sexually violated young girls. The northeastern neighborhoods have been largely displaced by the continuous intensive bombing campaign over the past month; at the same time, the RSF has infiltrated the city to station snipers inside a number of homes, creating further terror and fear among inhabitants in other neighbourhoods.
Zamzam is suffocated
This is a humanitarian disaster that must hurt any true human conscience. For the violence has brought us into a severe famine that is exceedingly cruel. El Fasher) and Zamzam camp are being suffocated by this ongoing assault on El Fasher. Zamzam camp, like other camps throughout Darfur, has been suffering from an ongoing humanitarian crisis since the security situation worsened over four years ago; its inhabitants continued to suffer from a severe shortage of all basic necessities, including medicine, food, water, health care, education.
The departure of international and local humanitarian organizations occurred because of insecurity and because of the radical political uncertainties in the country. This deterioration is accelerating at a frightening pace without any solutions in sight. Civil society organizations have faced tremendous challenges since the war began on April 15, 2023: daily violence and violations against civilians increased throughout Darfur, forcing continuous new waves of displacement towards the camps, and Zamzam in particular.
Before the current war, Zamzam camp was already overcrowded far beyond its normal capacity, with many of those newly fleeing from the hell of attacks by Janjaweed militias poured in from areas of the northeast parts of Jebel Marra and Tawila locality; they are being sheltered in schools, mosques, and various other public places in the camp. Indeed, as soon as the current war started, new waves after waves of displacement increased on a daily basis from all parts of Darfur—as far as Nyala, Zalingei, El Geneina and even from Khartoum.
This extremely crowded situation has become unbearably difficult for the residents of Zamzam camp and the new shelter centers alike, forcing many of these people to either to bear the burden of daily suffering where they are or to flee towards the El Fasher in search of shelter in public places.
This vast overcrowding contributes to the further deterioration of the living, health and psychological wellbeing. This comes even as the already existing malnutrition crisis has been exacerbated by skyrocketing prices: food prices have recently written by more than 300%. This occurs against a backdrop of extremely scarce drinking water, and a general lack of income.
The RSF attack on El Fasher on May 10th began with deliberate artillery attacks and the shelling on neighborhoods crowded with civilians, both in El Fasher city and Abu Shouk IDP camp. This has had the effect of forcing many citizens—mainly women, children, as most of these citizens today live in the streets within the camp without clothes, food, medicine. And all the time children are dying slowly from acute malnutrition.
The situation is beyond catastrophic
The situation in the city of El Fasher, and Zamzam camp in particular is beyond catastrophic and requires urgent international attention. Until this moment, as of the writing of this report, no one knows the exact number of those who have taken refuge in Zamzam camp from El Fasher city and Abu Shouk camp. But according to the estimates of those who are working in humanitarian fields within the camp, those responsible for various shelter centers, committees of different sectors, and notables of the camp, the total current population may have tripled since the RSF began its siege. Famine had already been growing in Zamzam camp several months before the attack on El Fasher (several reports had appeared noting about the death of children because of malnutrition. But today, right now, the situation is heading towards a severe famine that will be impossible to respond to if there is no urgent humanitarian intervention by the world.
[An MSF report of May 2024 extended the findings of its terrifying assessment of malnutrition in Zamzam as of January 2024:
Of the 46,000+ children who were screened, a staggering 30 per cent were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition – with eight per cent having severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Similar figures were found among the 16,000+ pregnant and breastfeeding women who were screened: 33 per cent were acutely malnourished, with 10 per cent having SAM. For both population groups these figures are double the emergency threshold of 15 per cent, indicating that there is a massive, life-threatening emergency in Zamzam camp.”]
Scarcity of food
The remaining stocks of food and other basic necessities will be almost non-existent in the entire state capital and as well as in the IDP camps in the coming days. There are clear basic causes:
- there aren’t enough food supplies coming to the city because of the threat posed by the RSF militia;
- people can’t go to the city centre to withdraw cash because of continuous shelling;
- communication problems creating further problems and there all the sources of income have been disrupted because of war.
[This is also the fourth successive agricultural season to have been disrupted by the RSF and their Janjaweed allies—ER]
Drinking water
Water is life and without it there is no life. Zamzam camp has been suffering from a water shortage for the past three years due to population overcrowding; and the sudden departure of humanitarian organizations that used to provide help in repairing water sources has exacerbated the crisis: people are now forced to go long distances, taking hours to fetch drinking water.
[Our project have now funded the rehabilitation of eight water wells, with two more in the works—ER]
Right now, the new wave of displacement and overcrowding has complicated things, adding to the burden of people who are already suffering severely from water shortages. Until now, the rainy season has not yet begun significantly, although it is about to fall. But normally, North Darfur state always receives its rains later than the rest of Darfur because of its semi-desert nature. And until it begins to rain continuously, the problem of water scarcity will remain a major concern, just as food is.
Deteriorating health situation in Zamzam
The health situation has been deteriorating catastrophically for a long time, coinciding with the deterioration of living conditions. But the current war and the attack on El Fasher have brought us to then verge of utter disaster, as there is an acute shortage of life-saving medicines as a result of the siege of El Fasher; and further, there is a shortage of medical personnel, which in turn has forced many health centers and private clinics to shut down.
[Doctors Without Borders/MSF issued a press release on June 14 that highlights the destruction of hospitals and health facilities during RSF assault—ER]
In addition to this crisis, and as a result of its barbaric attack on El Fasher, the Rapid Support Forces deliberately bombed most of the public and private health facilities and hospitals in the city, the latest of which is the southern El Fasher Hospital. This led to a complete shutdown of most of the facilities in the city. The general health situation—from the deterioration in physical wellbeing to increasing psychological disorders triggered by war trauma—have pushed many people to the verge of suicide.
People can’t bear to see their infant die in their arms because of shortages of the most basic medicines. Many of the families who fled to Zamzam camp from El Fasher because of RSF artillery shelling have family injured members and in need of medical treatment. But the painful reality is that there just aren’t enough operating medical centres to treat such cases, causing tremendous stress and anxiety among people.
Urgent appeal to people of conscience throughout the world and humanity from the Zamzam team:
Team Zamzam counselors, since the beginning of their efforts nearly four years ago, have been working day and night tirelessly in Zamzam camp and surrounding areas to provide basic necessities—from food, medicines, and psychological counseling for victims of sexual violence. Throughout this difficult period, we have never witnessed conditions as bad as they are today. This immense human suffering, the catastrophe that we are witnessing before our eyes—all this has driven us to a breaking point. Our hearts hurt, we are filled with sorrow and sadness.
But we aren’t thinking of giving up, whatever the cost. So we must again appeal to all who hear this agonized crying, and to respond as quickly as possible to save our beloved Zamzam.
Last month (May), given the spread of acute malnutrition, we were forced to divide our monthly distribution: what should have been distributed to 300 families was divided and distributed to 600 families instead. This month too, we will be forced to do the same thing: there are so many people suffering beyond suffering.
“…an estimated excess mortality of about 2.5 million people (about 15% of the population in Darfur and Kordofan, which are likely worst affected) [can be expected] by the end of September 2024…” (Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands, May 2024)
Currently in Zamzam, other than Team Zamzam, there are only a few local charities with very little means to provide assistance. Since the attack on El Fasher began last month, our primary focus has been to supply those who are in dire need to avoid death from hunger, although we continue with other activities as usual, but today food is what everyone wants. What most of the people crowded within the camp—along with other victims of the Rapid Support Forces—desperately want is food. Therefore, we appeal to everyone to help us to rescue the people of Zamzam and also the people displaced nearby, also suffering terribly.
********* HOW TO HELP **********
NB: It is now possible to make a tax-deductible contribution to our project, using a portal on the website of a 501/c/3 organization operating in Sudan. Operation Broken Silence, working primarily on health and education issues in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, has created a special site for tax-deductible contributions to our project, and we hope this makes contributing to the health and well-being of the people of Zamzam easier for donors.
Those wishing to assist in funding the work of Team Zamzam may also send a check directly to Eric (Eric Reeves, 31 Franklin St., Northampton, MA 01060).
OR
Purchase one of his woodturnings: https://www.ericreeves-woodturner.com/collections/all
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