Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced on Thursday that it has been forced to cease treatment for 5,000 malnourished children at Sudan’s Zamzam camp due to a severe shortage of supplies, including critical food and medicine. Among these children, 2,900 are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
The medical organization reported that ongoing conflict has blocked vital aid deliveries for months, preventing the replenishment of essential supplies, which ran out by the end of September.
“As a result of the prolonged blockade, we have had to halt treatment for 5,000 malnourished children, including nearly 3,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition,” MSF said in a statement.
The Zamzam camp, located near El Fasher in North Darfur, shelters around 450,000 people who have been displaced by conflict. The ongoing violence between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began in mid-April, has significantly impeded humanitarian access to the camp.
In August, the United Nations declared a famine in the camp, citing alarmingly high levels of malnutrition. MSF’s assessments estimated that 30% of children in Zamzam camp were malnourished, with one child dying every two hours from causes related to malnutrition.
Currently, MSF’s hospital, which has 80 beds and caters to the most vulnerable children, is the only operational medical facility in Zamzam camp.
While some supplies have trickled in over recent weeks, MSF warned that these were far from sufficient to meet the camp’s urgent needs.
Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF’s head of emergencies, emphasized the critical need for large-scale food and nutrition deliveries to address the escalating crisis.
“In recent days, we have seen a few trucks arrive after months of blockade, but this is only a fraction of what is needed,” Lacharité stated.
MSF highlighted that providing emergency food supplies to the camp’s population for one month would require around 2,000 tonnes of food—approximately 100 trucks worth of rations.