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Key facts
Population: well over 500,000—many recent displaced; overwhelmingly children and women
Location: 15 kilometers southwest of El Fasher, capital of North Darfur and presently under siege by the Rapid Support Forces:
Malnutrition: Much of Sudan, especially Darfur, is experiencing the highest level of food insecurity/malnutrition in this century. The Level 5 population (famine/catastrophe) has been growing for months. The Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands) predicted in May 2024:
“…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…”
Martin Griffiths, the outgoing Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, spoke on June 4, 2024 of…
“the likelihood that five million people across the country [Sudan] could face famine. I don’t think we’ve ever had that kind of number at risk of famine.”
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) published an assessment of Zamzam camp in particular on February 5, 2024:
Almost a quarter of children screened during the assessment were found to be acutely malnourished, with seven per cent having severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Among children aged six months to two years old, the figures were even more stark with nearly 40 per cent of this age group malnourished – 15 per cent with SAM. [“Severe Acute Malnutrition,” typically fatal for children under five not in a therapeutic setting–ER]
Put more starkly yet, MSF found that: a child was dying of hunger every two hours. The MSF report continued with its ghastly assessment of Zamzam (perhaps the only study of its kind for all of Darfur): it found a Crude Mortality Rate of 2.5 (deaths per 10,000 of surveyed population per day), more than double the emergency humanitarian threshold. A spokesperson in the same report warned that:
“Those with severe malnutrition who have not yet died are at high risk of dying within three to six weeks if they do not get treatment. Their condition is treatable if they can get to a health facility. But many cannot.”
Again, this report was issued in early February 2024, using data collected mainly in the previous month.
[Graphs and other data appear at the conclusion of this update]
Photos from Zamzam
Who and in what circumstances are the people facing such catastrophic conditions? Most of the photographs below were taken in Zamzam by members of Team Zamzam, part of a project responding to such vast human suffering. These are real human beings, experiencing a shameful abandonment.
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WHAT WE KNOW AND HAVE LONG KNOWN
The Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands) predicted in May 2024:
“…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…”
