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World Food Programme
The coarse paste of ground peanut shells is called ombaz is normally considered waste and is only suitable for feeding livestock. But for many in the Zamzam camp in Sudan, this is now the only thing they have left to stave off hunger.
The food shortages are so serious that this residue left after the oil has been squeezed out of the shells has become a staple food for survival. Others eat grass.
Hunger is so bad that by some estimates earlier this year a child died every two hours from lack of food. Malnutrition is believed to have worsened since then.
Such conditions mean that earlier this year the North Darfur camp was given the grim distinction of being formally declared the world’s first famine in seven years.
Cut off by front lines where armed men do not allow aid to arrive and often unreachable by phone or internet, the Zamzam disaster is unfolding largely unseen and beyond the reach of aid agencies.
“Many people are dying of hunger, especially children and the elderly,” said Ibrahim Ahmed, a resident reached by the Telegraph.
Zamzam’s fate is all the more unthinkable because the dying people could easily be saved. Just 420 kilometers away, trucks full of food have been queuing for months to reach the camp, only to be stopped by the warring sides in Sudan’s catastrophic civil war. Only a little help can get through.
The camp is also a no man’s land between warring factions, with the situation worsening last week when the camp came under fire, killing at least 24 people.
Another resident, who gave his name only as Imran, said: “The exact death toll is unclear, but hundreds have died due to famine and violence.”
Until recently it was estimated that around 400,000 people would be in the camp, but the number has skyrocketed because people have fled fighting elsewhere. Some agencies now estimate it could be as many as a million.
“Hundreds of thousands of people in Zamzam camp are teetering on the edge of survival, without regular access to food, clean water or medical care,” said Alex Marianelli, deputy director for Sudan at the World Food Program (WFP).
“As someone who has worked for WFP for decades, I am deeply shocked by stories of mothers grieving for children lost to malnutrition and families eating peanut shells commonly used to feed animals just to avoid the pain of to alleviate hunger.”
Videos from the camp show massive overcrowding. The buildings and shelters established in the camps are being overrun with new huts and rudimentary shelters.
“I can only describe the situation as a crisis,” says Ahmed. “Every day we receive people displaced from different parts of Darfur and the capacity of the camp is very small to accommodate all these people.”
There is a serious lack of toilets and sanitation, leading to fears that water-borne diseases such as cholera are on the way.
There is food for people with money, but without work most of them have to go without, or if they are lucky, they eat millet or ombaz.
Another resident named Mohamed Adam said: “People are looking for tree roots and peanut shells, locusts and grasses.”
Nour Abdallah, who also lives there, said: “There is a lot of hardship and suffering in this place; one of the things is that people eat ombaz here.”
Humanitarians usually try to avoid the “f-word.” They argue that overuse of the word famine degrades the term, and that it should be reserved to draw attention to the very worst famine catastrophes.
A rigorous assessment means that famine is only declared in areas where at least one in five people or households are extremely deprived of food and experiencing famine and poverty, resulting in extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and deaths.
They have no doubts about using it to describe what is happening in Zamzam.
An independent panel of experts formally declared famine in Zamzam at the end of July, the first time anywhere in the world since 2017.
“The need is truly unimaginable,” said Melanie Kempster, global health and nutrition director at the aid agency Relief International, which runs clinics and malnutrition centers in the camp. “Famine is not easily explained.”
She continued: “It is the only location in the world where there is currently a famine, so it is extremely serious.”
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World Food Programme
Resources believe the situation is even worse than claimed. Conditions are also said to be dire in other camps in North Darfur, such as Abu Shouk, but aid workers cannot reach them to assess the situation.
One diplomat told the Telegraph: “We have to assume that the situation is much worse than what we see now.”
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimated early this year that a child dies every two hours from causes related to malnutrition.
The number of people going without food has increased since then.
“What we are finding is that the level of malnutrition is increasing month on month and is at a very worrying level,” Ms Kempster said.
Sudan has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since the country fell into civil war 20 months ago.
In April 2023, the simmering rivalry between the de facto president, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, erupted into open war.
Clashes between the army and Hemdeti’s Rapid Support Force (RSF) militia have since turned much of the country of nearly 50 million people into a war zone.
In the western part of Darfur, the fighting is reminiscent of the genocide that engulfed the region twenty years ago. As the RSF and its allies have captured towns and cities, thousands of civilians have reportedly been killed in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the region of the black African Massalit population and other non-Arab communities.
The town of El Fasher, Darfur’s administrative center, is now the besieged last stronghold of the Sudanese government.
Zamzam is about half an hour away, on a dusty plain. The camp was set up to house those who fled the conflict two decades ago and many have lived there since. The numbers have increased in recent months as people have fled elsewhere in Darfur.
Aid agencies have been working in Zamzam since its founding, but since the outbreak of war, both sides have been accused of blocking supplies through the front lines.
Humanitarians are desperate to open a humanitarian corridor from Adré on the border with Chad in the west, and to Port Sudan in the east.
“Malnutrition is treatable,” says Ms Kempster.
“All we need are the right supplies, but these access issues mean we can’t meet our needs.”
The WFP managed to get 15 trucks into Zamzam at the end of last month. These were the first the agency has managed to get through since April.
Mohamed Abdiladif, director of Save the Children in Sudan, said this week: “The suffering that people in this camp are experiencing is incomprehensible.
“Save the Children calls on parties to the conflict to protect civilians and humanitarian workers, facilitate unimpeded humanitarian access and uphold international humanitarian law.”
Kashif Shafique, Sudan director of Relief International, said this week’s shelling had made conditions worse.
He said: “It is estimated that more than 1 million displaced people are sheltering in camp for safety after fleeing all the violence in their hometowns.
“The situation in the overcrowded camp was already at breaking point – cut off from critical humanitarian supplies, a famine has been declared and rates of severe malnutrition and disease are soaring.
“Now widespread panic and desperation have taken over, as innocent civilians come under direct fire.”
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