An Early March Update from Project Zamzam (March 5, 2025): The month of Ramadan Defined by Foreboding, Fear, Starvation
A desperate plea for help
(Eric) It is hard to believe that the humanitarian crisis in Zamzam could deepen; however, as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) sustain more military losses throughout Sudan, as well as a significant rupture in their supply lines around the city of El Fasher (15 kilometers to the northeast of Zamzam), their lust for vengeful attacks on innocent and completely defenseless civilians only increases. Sudan Tribune (March 3, 2025) provides an extraordinarily detailed account of precisely where RSF attacks on civilians occurred and the nature of the violence that has driven more than 3,500 families from areas to the south and southeast of El Fasher. This account was provided by a spokesperson for the distinguished International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The Sudan Tribune dispatch continued:
On Sunday March 1, 2025, Mohamed Khamis Doda, a spokesperson for the Zamzam displacement camp, said the RSF had attacked 52 villages in Dar El Salam on Saturday, looting livestock, killing civilians and displacing thousands of residents to the Zamzam camp.
There is a grim irony in these assaults coming on the first day of this year’s Ramadan (evening of February 28 – March 1): the RSF has no respect for Islam, for international norms, or for humanitarian law. Sadly, people fleeing to Zamzam from these murderous attacks will find a warm greeting—but precious little more.
The counselors of Team Zamzam will very likely to be the only ones able to offer them food, water, and shelter—if they can. The Team has recently managed to purchase 4,000 kilograms of flour, sugar, and lentils. Their ambition will be to provide communal “iftars” (the evening meal that breaks the daily fast for the 30 days of Ramadan). But once again the scale of humanitarian need is only dramatized by these thousands of newly displaced civilians. Security remains intolerable, and there is no presence by the UN or international community other than a health clinic run by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
[The Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA) announced late last year that it was launching a project responding to Zamzam’s massive needs. It is not clear how much assistance from SAPA has actually reached the people in the camp; their goal appears to be to fund small local charities operating on the model of Team Zamzam.]
Disgracefully, the UN World Food Program announced that “it has had to pause the distribution of life saving food and nutrition assistance” in Zamzam. But there have been no “distributions” by WFP since last year. The last modest food delivery was in December and that was long ago consumed in this camp that now may house as many as 1 million human beings—by far the largest in Darfur, indeed in all of Sudan.
The WFP claims to have provided “60,000 people with food vouchers before heavy shelling forced the UN agency to pause aid operations in Zamzam.” WFP declared further that, “the food vouchers allow families to purchase essential food supplies such as cereals, pulses, oil and salt, directly from local markets which are stocked by the private sector.”
This is disingenuous nonsense: the “vouchers” the WFP has provided are utterly worthless—there are simply no food providers who will accept them. The food traders who do supply food to Zamzam charge exorbitant prices—and accept only cash; and this is how the counselors of Team Zamzam must acquire food, including the 4,000 kilograms of food noted above. But this takes a huge portion of our monthly project budget of $25,000. There are other, smaller projects in Zamzam, but without the resources of Team Zamzam. Nor is it at all clear when the RSF will be sufficiently defeated to allow for the creation of secure humanitarian corridors for truly substantial food and medical aid.
With more support, Team Zamzam can feed more children; the project has already fed many tens of thousands of children and adults with particular needs.
In short, Team Zamzam knows the situation in the camp better than anyone; they are expert in acquiring food in the desperate food markets; and they know within the camp where need is greatest.
But that need is simply overwhelming: more children are starving to death; pregnant and lactating mothers are at great risk; so, too, are orphans, the disabled, the very elderly, those with medical challenges (there is almost no medicine left in the camp). These are the people we are trying to help, but we can’t do more without additional financial support.
****************
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 “Ramadan” woodturnings: https://www.ericreeves-woodturner.com/collections/all
All proceeds from all woodturning sales go directly to sustaining our work this month in Zamzam
