Sudan: MSF forced to halt activities as violence engulfs Zamzam camp
The escalation of attacks and fighting in and around Zamzam camp for displaced people near El Fasher in North Darfur has made it impossible for Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to continue providing medical assistance.
Despite widespread starvation and immense humanitarian needs, we have no choice but to take the decision to suspend all our activities in the camp, including the MSF field hospital.
In the first three weeks of February, our teams in Zamzam received 139 wounded patients in the MSF field hospital, mostly suffering with gunshots and shrapnel injuries. The facility was designed to help tackle the massive malnutrition crisis unfolding in the camp and cannot provide trauma surgery for people in critical conditions. Famine conditions were declared by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification last year.
“Eleven patients died while in the MSF hospital, five of them children, because we could neither treat them properly nor refer them to Saudi hospital, the only facility with surgical capacity in nearby El Fasher,” says Yahya Kalilah, Head of MSF in Sudan.
“In January and December, two of our ambulances carrying patients from the camp to El Fasher were shot at. Now it's even more dangerous and as a result, many people, including patients requiring trauma surgery or emergency caesarian section, are trapped in Zamzam.”
Our work saves lives
A worsening disaster in Zamzam
The area has seen heavy fighting between the Rapid Support Forces and the Joint Forces—a coalition of armed groups allied with Sudanese armed forces—with dreadful consequences on civilians.
Besieging and shelling the town of El Fasher for the last 10 months, the Rapid Support Forces have stepped up their offensive in recent weeks and launched attacks against Zamzam camp, in particular on 11 and 12 February.
People who were already struggling to survive now find their access to water and food even more compromised, as the central market has been looted and burnt down.
“Halting our project in the midst of a worsening disaster in Zamzam is a heartbreaking decision,” says Yahya Kalilah. “For more than two years, our teams did their utmost to provide care against all odds, despite the siege, supply shortages, and multiple other challenges, calling and waiting for a scaled up humanitarian response which never materialised.”
“However, as the battle for El Fasher rages on and now directly reaches Zamzam camp, the most minimal security conditions are currently not met for us to stay.
“The sheer proximity of the violence, great difficulties in sending supplies, the impossibility to send experienced staff for adequate support, and uncertainty regarding routes out of the camp for our colleagues and civilians leave us with little choice”.
Zamzam camp hosts about 500,000 people, with new arrivals fleeing from the North Darfur villages of Abu Zerega, Shagra and Saluma. These people are now staying in schools, community buildings, or under the trees in the open.
They have told our teams about dwellings set on fire, looting, sexual violence, killings, beatings and other abuses in villages and roads of El Fasher locality. Some hundred families also reached the town of Tawila, sometimes barefoot after leaving everything behind and escaping horrific violence on their way.
Unacceptable risk
MSF is deeply concerned about the safety of its staff and the hundreds of thousands of people in Zamzam camp and urges the Rapid Support Forces, the Joint Forces and all armed actors in the area to protect civilians and let those willing to flee to able to do so unharmed.
In North Darfur, we continue to run emergency activities in Tawila while looking for every possible way to help people in Zamzam and El Fasher without exposing our staff to unacceptable risk levels.
In West, Central and South Darfur and in other parts of the country, our teams keep responding to the catastrophic malnutrition and health crisis driven by a relentless conflict, continued obstructions of the warring parties, and exacerbated by a failing humanitarian response.
MSF reiterates its call to drastically scale up the provision of assistance in the many places where it remains possible. Warring parties must grant unhindered access for aid delivery, and their allies and influential states must use their leverage to ease the obstacles that are causing deaths and starvation.
MSF and the crisis in Sudan
The violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has trapped millions of people in the middle of an unexpected conflict. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes while access to essential services such as healthcare has become increasingly difficult.
Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams already working in Sudan have been responding to the crisis since its first moments.