Children dying every two hours in Darfur camp: MSF calls for global intervention
February 5, 2024 (EL-FASHER) – In a desperate plea for assistance, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has called on the international community to urgently mobilize resources to address the escalating malnutrition crisis in Zamzam camp, North Darfur.
A child dies every two hours in Zamzam camp, said the international humanitarian medical group on Monday after a rapid nutrition and mortality assessment conducted inside the displacement camp outside El-Fasher.
The assessment uncovered a catastrophic situation in Zamzam camp since the onset of the conflict in between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces in April 2023. All emergency thresholds for malnutrition have been surpassed, with almost a quarter of the children screened found to be acutely malnourished, and seven per cent suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Among children aged six months to two years old, nearly 40 per cent were malnourished, with 15 per cent experiencing SAM.
The Global Acute Malnutrition rate (GAM), a combined measure of moderate and severe acute malnutrition, has reached a critical 15 per cent, signalling the need for an immediate and coordinated humanitarian response to avert further loss of life.
UN agencies and international NGOs, whose presence in North Darfur has been limited since their evacuation in April, are deemed vital for this response. MSF emphasizes the urgency of food and cash distributions, along with essential healthcare, water, and sanitation provision.
The gravity of the situation is underscored by the camp’s crude mortality rate, which stands at 2.5 deaths per 10,000 people per day—more than double the emergency threshold. Alarmingly, 40 per cent of pregnant and breastfeeding women are also found to be malnourished.
Claire Nicolet, head of MSF’s emergency response in Sudan, describes the Zamzam camp as facing an “absolutely catastrophic situation.” Nicolet estimates at least 13 child deaths occur daily, and those with severe malnutrition are at high risk of succumbing within three to six weeks without treatment.
MSF, the sole operational health provider in Zamzam camp, is overwhelmed by the high number of patients and the severity of their conditions. With the collapse of North Darfur’s health system over the past nine months, the clinic serves as one of the few functional outpatient health centers in the region.
The dire conditions in the camp extend beyond healthcare; there is no clean water supply, forcing people to drink from swamps or rivers, leading to severe diarrhoea and potentially fatal consequences, especially for malnourished children.
Nicolet attributes the high levels of malnutrition to a combination of factors, including insecurity preventing crop cultivation and below-average agricultural production due to low rainfall. The impending malnutrition peak poses a looming threat, with cases predicted to drastically increase.
Before April 2023, the health system in North Darfur received support from UN agencies, but aid abruptly halted after the breakout of the conflict, leaving the region in a state of crisis.
MSF, currently the only large international organization providing free paediatric medical care across all five Darfur states, acknowledges the limitations of their response. Referrals to the paediatric hospital in El Fasher occur daily, but the scale of the disaster requires a massive mobilization of the international community to prevent further preventable deaths.
(ST)