The United Nations’ food agency said on Wednesday it “has been forced” to temporarily stop aid distribution in Sudan’s famine-stricken Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur.
“Without immediate assistance, thousands of desperate families in Zamzam could starve in the coming weeks,” said Laurent Bukera, the regional director for the World Food Program (WFP).
The move comes after the Doctors Without Borders medical charity decided to pause its operations in the camp earlier this week.
Why did WFP stop its activities?
The WFP cited the escalation of fighting between the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, or RSF, as the reason for the suspension.
Zamzam camp is 12km south of El Fasher in North Darfur, which has been under RSF siege for months.
It is home to home to half a million people and is the largest displacement camp in the Darfur region.
WFP has reached about 300,000 camp residents, but it and its partners only managed to feed 60,000 people this month as the battle for El Fasher rages on.
Intensified fighting hampers aid work
Edem Wosornu, the UN humanitarian operations director, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that satellite imagery confirmed the use of heavy weapons in and around the Zamzam camp in recent weeks.
“Terrified civilians, including humanitarian workers, were unable to leave the area when the fighting was most intense,” she said.
Famine was declared in the Zamzam camp last August and spread to two other displacement camps.
Since then, WFP said only one convoy of humanitarian supplies had reached the camp. The agency blamed road conditions during the rainy season, fighting, and “purposeful obstruction” by the RSF.
The RSF and the Sudanese military have been at war since April 2023.
“Nearly two years of relentless conflict in Sudan have inflicted immense suffering and turned parts of the country into a hellscape,” Wosornu told the Security Council.
(News24)
