The Displaced Coordination has reported that between 20 to 25 individuals have died in Darfur’s (West Sudan) refugee camps due to a lack of food.
On Friday, the United Nations (UN) officially declared a famine at the “Zamzam” camp, home to over half a million people.
Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, highlighted the severity of the situation following the famine’s onset in North Darfur.
She called for urgent provision of resources and unrestricted humanitarian access by conflict parties, stating, “If this does not happen, we will witness an even more catastrophic situation.”
American officials have warned that an impending famine in one of the sprawling camps for war-displaced people in Darfur, Sudan, is escalating uncontrollably as armed groups in the country obstruct aid deliveries.
The officials cautioned that the current conditions could result in a famine more deadly than the last major famine globally, which occurred 13 years ago.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), and other independent and governmental humanitarian agencies have intensified their calls for a ceasefire and the delivery of aid across Sudan.
This follows confirmation by international experts on Thursday that a full-scale famine has developed in at least one of the three giant temporary camps, which house up to 600,000 people displaced by the ongoing war in Sudan that has lasted for over a year.
Two American officials briefed journalists on Friday about their analysis of the crisis, following the declaration of the famine, the third such declaration in the 20-year history of the Famine Review Committee.
