Famine has been confirmed in Zamzam camp, which shelters hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur Region, as conflict, displacement and humanitarian-access constraints have devastating consequences.
Update June 27: Read new IPC report on Sudan here
At a tent settlement in the Chadian border town of Adre, Ahmat feeds blue cloth into his foot-powered sewing machine, as a popular folksong from his native Sudan plays in loops over a loudspeaker.
Famine has been confirmed in a camp sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur Region.
The declaration for Zamzam camp is a result of conflict, displacement and humanitarian access constraints.
Excellencies, the World Food Programme, and other humanitarian agencies, have been warning for months now of a widespread collapse in food security across the country.
We have been clear that famine is a real and dangerous possibility: caused by the raging conflict, widespread displacement, and above all the denial of humanitarian access by the warring parties.
In Mar
At one end of a junkyard – next to the rusty husk of an old bus and the broken remains of a 1958 Chevrolet Daley – Edith Ndebele carefully turns a metal drum heated by firewood, keeping an eye on the peanuts tumbling around inside. The roast she’s perfected flavours the thick, creamy peanut butter her customers love in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, in the southwestern provin
World Food Programme (2023). Regional Bureau for Eastern Africa - Logistics in Eastern Africa: Delivering amidst increased challenges.
Annual Country Reports
Available at: Annual Country Reports 2023 | World Food Programme (wfp.org)
In Sudan, areas of agricultural land have turned into battlegrounds, while farms and businesses stand abandoned as people have fled for safety. There are huge cash shortages nationwide, and repeated cuts to communication channels hinder efforts to keep commerce going.
“Some cows refused to cross the water,” says cattle farmer Eric Mutabazi, recalling the days when it took hours to find a safe place to cross the Lwizi river, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern Tanganyika province.
Its treacherous waters meant “the safety of my livestock and my income were at stake,” he says.
But what could Mutabazi do?
The World Food Programme (WFP) is working around the clock to deliver food assistance to communities across Sudan facing acute hunger. WFP’s priority is providing vital aid across 14 areas in the country to people who have been left either in famine or at risk of slipping into famine after 500 days of relentless conflict.
Zenebech Kahsay is relieved to watch her children play once again, their energy renewed at last by bread she’s baked after receiving a 15kg bag of wheat from the World Food Programme (WFP) at a food distribution in Tahtay Adyabo, in Ethiopia’s northern province of Tigray.
“My children were dizzy with hunger,” explains Kahsay as she grinds dark brown grains of wheat with a pestle and mortar.
