In the vast desert expanse known as the Zamzam displacement camp, a poignant story of loss and resilience emerges. Mona Ibrahim, a mother grappling with the shadows of suffering, has faced unimaginable tragedy: the loss of her daughter, Rania, and her infant son, Montasir, to the scourge of malnutrition. “I could only hold them as they faded away,” she shared softly during a video call with Agence France-Presse (AFP). Forty-year-old Ibrahim sat outside a makeshift shelter patched together with straw and plastic near North Darfur’s crowded capital, al-Fasher, a city held hostage by paramilitary forces for months.
Do we ever truly know the depth of our own strength until tested by such unbearable grief? Rania was the first to slip away. El-Fasher’s hospital, the only one still functioning, was neither adequately staffed nor equipped to save her. Just three days after being admitted with acute diarrhea, the young girl succumbed to her illness. Her brother Montasir followed soon after, his frail body swollen from the ravages of severe malnutrition.
The siege of El-Fasher mirrors the larger conflict tearing through Sudan, simmering for 21 long months between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In July, a United Nations-led assessment confirmed famine had taken root in Zamzam, an established refuge for an estimated half-million to a million displaced individuals. By year’s end, the crisis had metastasized beyond Zamzam, reaching Abu Shouk, al-Salam, and the Nuba Mountains in the south, as highlighted by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
Despite mounting evidence, the Sudanese government—a staunch ally of the military—denies the famine’s existence. Yet, the grim reality persists, leaving millions teetering on the precipice of starvation.
Now, the specter of malnutrition looms over Ibrahim’s four-year-old daughter, Rashida, who in the absence of proper medical attention is battling severe anemia. “I am terrified I will lose her too,” Ibrahim confided. “We’re abandoned. There is no food, no medicine, nothing.”
At Salam 56, one of Zamzam’s 48 overcrowded shelters, maternal exhaustion paints a vivid picture of despair. Women cradle their children, too feeble to walk, their weary eyes set against the backdrop of an unforgiving landscape. Families huddle around shared bowls filled with sparse remnants of peanut residue, a substance more commonly used for feeding livestock. What bitter irony is it that sustenance intended for animals has become the last resort for human survival? “It’s all we have,” lamented Rawiya Ali, a 35-year-old mother of five, resigned to a harsh domestic reality.
During the rainy season, contaminated water forms in shallow reservoirs, forcing women like Ali to trek two miles for a precious, albeit polluted, supply. “Animals drink from it and so do we,” she told AFP, a somber testament to the desperate conditions.
Salam 56 houses over 700 families, as reported by its coordinator, Adam Mahmoud Abdullah. Since the conflict erupted in April 2023, the camp has received a mere four food deliveries, with the last being ten tons of flour in September. “Since then, nothing has come,” Abdullah confirmed to AFP. This stark reality reflects the true cost of a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced over 12 million people, and precipitated what the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.”
Further south, about 400 miles from Zamzam, the dire situation echoes through Dilling in South Kordofan state. Here, long queues form outside one of the rare community kitchens still operational. “Some collapse where they stand,” described Nazik Kabalo, leader of a women’s rights group overseeing these efforts. Her photographs reveal gaunt figures with swollen bellies and skin tightly stretched over brittle frames. “For others, even when they get food…they vomit it back up,” Kabalo added.
Once a beacon of agricultural prosperity, South Kordofan now sees its farmers consuming the seeds meant for future crops, while others resort to boiling leaves for sustenance. “We are seeing hunger in areas that have never seen famine in Sudan’s history,” Kabalo said, underlining the stark transformation.
Sudan, blessed with treasures of oil and gold and fertile lands, now finds itself ravaged by war and mismanagement, with hunger casting a pallor over the land. Such observations are echoed in Gedaref state, a refuge for over a million displaced, where Save the Children’s humanitarian director, Mary Lupul, recalled encountering the “skinniest children” she has ever seen, “with runny noses and cloudy eyes.”
Meanwhile, in Khartoum’s southern district, the World Food Programme reports firsthand encounters with emaciated locals, subsisting on a diet of lentils and boiled grains. The fear is that famine conditions are already taking hold, although a paucity of reliable data stalls an official declaration.
In a setting where both government and RSF factions complicate humanitarian access, a thought-provoking question looms large: How do we navigate through layers of bureaucracy when time is short and lives are at stake? “You can’t just put supplies on a truck and drive them to famine-hit areas,” lamented Lupul.
The IRC asserts that the army exploits its status as the “internationally recognized government,” obstructing U.N. and agency efforts aiming to reach RSF-dominated areas, while the RSF itself orchestrates sieges on starving villages, loots aid, and demands hefty fees for assistance.
Without prompt intervention, the threat of nationwide famine grows. “People are dying now, but the long-term impact will haunt Sudan for generations,” Lupul forewarned.
As night cloaked Zamzam in its quiet mantle, Ibrahim watched over her daughter Rashida, whose shallow breathing mirrored the tenuous hold on hope. “I do not know how much longer we can hold on,” she confided, a sentiment echoing through the camp’s silent despair.
Edited By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring
