Overview (Eric)
Sudan’s humanitarian catastrophe is deepening even as international attention remains strikingly limited. The most immediate new danger is the failure of the 2026 rains across much of Darfur.
Rains arrived weeks late, were erratic, and in many areas came too late to save crops. North Darfur and large parts of West Darfur have experienced widespread crop failure, while drought has depleted pasture, livestock, and water sources. In some West Darfur communities, people are already traveling up to seven kilometers for drinking water; in Geneina, the price of 400 liters of water has risen from SDG 6,000 to SDG 25,000.
The consequences may extend well into 2027 if groundwater and reservoirs are not replenished.
Food insecurity is correspondingly severe. FAO reports that 19.5 million Sudanese faced Crisis-level food insecurity or worse earlier this year, including 135,000 in Catastrophe, while 14 areas in North Darfur, South Darfur, and South Kordofan were considered at risk of famine. Cereal prices have soared: between January and August, sorghum prices more than doubled in most monitored markets, while millet rose by 77 percent. In El Geneina, millet prices increased more than 80 percent in the first three weeks of September alone.
WFP is already providing only half-rations in some of the largest displacement concentrations. The humanitarian response is itself approaching a breaking point. The material assembled for this update reports that Sudan’s $2.9-billion 2026 humanitarian plan had received only 43 percent of required funding; WFP was roughly one-third funded, while only about 20 percent of the $1.6 billion regional refugee response had been received.
The UN warned in September that the humanitarian system could be forced to scale back within weeks.
Displacement continues to accelerate, and more than 55,000 Sudanese refugees have entered eastern Chad this year, and in late September arrivals through Adré and Tiné surged to more than 400 a day—roughly twenty times the recent daily rate. Nearly one million Sudanese refugees have crossed into Chad since April 2023. The reopening of the Tiné border crossing for humanitarian traffic is therefore important, but it cannot compensate for the scale of need.
[Sources used for this overview: FAO/GIEWS Country Brief (24 September 2026); Centre for Humanitarian Change, “Darfur on the brink” (24 September 2026); UN/UNHCR reporting compiled for October 2026.]
Against this background, Team Zamzam continues its work with refugees and displaced families in eastern Chad. The coordinating counselors for Team Zamzam had produced an unusually full and revealing account of the humanitarian situation in Bami Joura refugee camp southwest of Tiné, Chad (see here). The Executive Summary follows below, and serves as a grim proxy for the many other hundreds of thousands of human beings living lives of suffering, deprivation, isolation, and fear:
Executive Summary of Team Zamzam Report
The humanitarian situation at Bami-Jura Refugee Camp in the Tine area of Chad remains extremely challenging and continues to deteriorate as large numbers of Sudanese refugees arrive on a daily basis. The majority of newly displaced people are women and children who have fled violence, insecurity, and serious violations in Sudan.
Refugees are arriving after traumatic displacement journeys, having lost homes, livelihoods, family members, and access to essential services. The increasing population is placing additional pressure on already limited food, health, protection, education, and shelter resources.
During the reporting period, Team Zamzam continued to provide humanitarian and community-based support despite significant resource constraints. Key interventions included the provision of breakfast to 2,731 individuals, psychosocial support to survivors of sexual violence, monitoring visits within the refugee shelter, distribution of essential food and hygiene items to 113 households comprising 715 individuals, and the operation of the first educational center established by Team Zamzam inside Bami-Jura Camp.
The educational center, established on 19 September 2026, currently operates two classrooms and serves approximately 400 children per day, in addition to approximately 60 women participating in afternoon activities. However, demand substantially exceeds available capacity, with more than 1,000 children expressing interest in accessing educational activities.
The overall situation requires an urgent, coordinated, and sustained humanitarian response. The scale of current needs significantly exceeds the resources available to Team Zamzam and the existing humanitarian response capacity in the area.
(Photographs of Team Zamzam assisting children in need)
§§§
Particularly notable is the establishment of an education center in late September, an endeavor already yielding impressive results amidst an enthusiastic reception within the camp. Demand, predictably, now greatly exceeds capacity and we hope to be able to increase the relatively small proportion of the monthly budget now devoted to this new project. Details of the project may be found in the Team’s monthly report.
The continuing flow of refugees through Adré and Tiné puts increasing pressure on inadequate humanitarian resources and there is no respite in sight. An invisible population of Sudanese refugees in Chad has been shamefully abandoned at a desperate moment. Disease, starvation, and large-scale mortality continue to loom in the coming months.
§§§§
If the world has largely averted its eyes from the Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad, it continues to be the case that via Team Zamzam we may offer our assistance:
I again take the opportunity to remind our supporters that 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, our fiscal partner, works primarily on health and education issues in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan; OBS 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 served by Team Zamzam easier for donors.
Another way to support Team Zamzam: Every woodturning has two stories!
