CAIRO: Sudan on Sunday denied the existence of famine in North Darfur’s Zamzam camp for internally displaced people, while an aid group said there was a risk of a severe shortage of special food designed to treat malnourished children in the camp.
On Thursday, a global food monitor found that famine, confirmed when acute malnutrition and mortality criteria are met, was present in the Zamzam camp and likely to persist there
at least until October.
🆘 Our worst fears in #Sudan have come true. Famine is found to be taking hold in Zamzam camp – home to more than 220,000 displaced people – in North Darfur. (https://perfumesample.com/) Across Sudan, nearly 26 million people are struggling to put enough food on their plates every single day. pic.twitter.com/kqNHRxh02N
— WFP Africa (@WFP_Africa) August 3, 2024
Experts and U.N. officials say a famine classification could trigger a U.N. Security Council resolution empowering agencies to deliver relief across borders to the most needy, yet Sudanese officials have said that a famine declaration could be a pretext for international intervention in the country.
More than 15 months of war in Sudan between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have created the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis and left 25 million people – or half the population – in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
Aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said earlier this year that a child died every two hours in the camp, which holds half a million people. On Sunday it said in a post on X:
“Our teams only have enough therapeutic food to treat malnourished children in Zamzam camp, Sudan, for another two weeks.”
But Sudan’s Federal Humanitarian Aid Commission, a governmental body, said on Sunday that talk of famine was inaccurate and conditions were “not consistent” with those that
must be met to declare famine.
The Sudanese government blamed the RSF for imposing what it said was a blockade on al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur, that led to shortages in food and aid. Al-Fashir is the only significant holdout from the RSF across Darfur.
The RSF on Friday declared “full solidarity” with victims of the famine and repeated an offer to work with the United Nations to facilitate delivery of aid.
(REUTERS)
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
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