MSF halts operations in famine-hit displacement camp

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced on Friday that it is suspending operations at Sudan’s largest displacement camp due to escalating violence.

“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,” the global charity said, using its French acronym.

The camp in North Darfur shelters more than half a million people, according to United Nations figures.

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified this month in the camp after the RSF stormed Zamzam on February 11.

Both sides have been accused of shelling health facilities and residential areas and using hunger as a weapon of war.

The clash has forced about 10,000 families to flee, according to the International Organization for Migration. Moreover, the MSF facility received 139 wounded patients—most with shrapnel or gunshot injuries—in the first three weeks of February.

What did MSF say?

“Halting our project in the midst of a worsening disaster in Zamzam is a heartbreaking decision,” Yahya Kalilah, MSF head of mission in Sudan, said , adding that they did not have the minimal security conditions to be able to stay.

Kalilah added that 11 patients had died in the hospital because the staff could not treat them properly or transfer them to a hospital in the capital. Five of those who died were children.

The MSF facility in Zamzam was originally established to fight malnutrition in the camp and does not have the means to provide trauma surgery.

Meanwhile, transporting patients to the nearest hospital in El-Fasher, which is capable of handling trauma procedures, has become increasingly dangerous.

“In January and December, two of our ambulances carrying patients from the camp to El Fasher were shot at,” Kalilah said. “Now it’s even more dangerous and as a result, many people, including patients requiring trauma surgery or emergency caesarean sections, are trapped in Zamzam.”

The announcement comes days after MSF’s secretary-general Christopher Lockyear said the Zamzam camp was an example of “the brutal characteristics of this war intersecting in a perfect storm.”

“The people in Zamzam have fled and been displaced, been besieged, starved, bombed, and they are trapped,” he said at a news conference.

Sudan’s crisis

Just in January, the medical aid organization suspended operations in one of the key hospitals in the Sudanese capital which offered free medical care.

The war in Sudan has triggered the world’s largest reported displacement and hunger crisis, with fighting cutting off access to up to 80% of hospitals in areas of conflict. Millions are still living there as they cannot afford to leave.

Before February’s violence, around 1.7 million were displaced in North Darfur alone, the UN says.

Famine was first declared in Zamzam in August, after 15 months of war. It has since spread to two more displacement camps near El-Fasher. A UN-backed assessment expects the famine to expand to five more areas, including El-Fasher, by May.

Edited by: Louis Oelofse