Sudan: Global Food Monitor Says Famine Has Taken Gold in Darfur

Women and children wait to fill their jerrycans with water at the Huri camp for people displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan, south of Gedaref in eastern Sudan, on March 29, 2024 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Women and children wait to fill their jerrycans with water at the Huri camp for people displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan, south of Gedaref in eastern Sudan, on March 29, 2024 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
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Sudan: Global Food Monitor Says Famine Has Taken Gold in Darfur

Women and children wait to fill their jerrycans with water at the Huri camp for people displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan, south of Gedaref in eastern Sudan, on March 29, 2024 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Women and children wait to fill their jerrycans with water at the Huri camp for people displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan, south of Gedaref in eastern Sudan, on March 29, 2024 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

The war in Sudan and restrictions on aid deliveries have caused famine in at least one site in North Darfur, and have likely led to famine conditions in other parts of the conflict region, a committee of food security experts said in a report on Thursday.

The finding, linked to an internationally recognised standard known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), is just the third time a famine determination has been made since the system was set up 20 years ago.

It shows how starvation and disease are taking a deadly toll in Sudan, where more than 15 months of war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have created the world's biggest internal displacement crisis and left 25 million people - or half the population - in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

Experts and UN officials say a famine classification could trigger a UN Security Council resolution empowering agencies to deliver relief across borders to the most needy.

In its report, the Famine Review Committee (FRC) found that famine, confirmed when acute malnutrition and mortality criteria are met, was ongoing in North Darfur's Zamzam camp for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and likely to persist there at least until October.

Zamzam has a population of 500,000. It is near the city of al-Fashir, home to 1.8 million people and the last significant holdout from the RSF across Darfur. The RSF has been besieging the area and no aid has reached the sprawling camp for months.

The primary causes of famine in Zamzam camp are conflict and severely restricted humanitarian access, the FRC said, Reuters reported.

It said it was plausible that similar conditions were affecting other areas in Darfur including the displaced persons camps of Abu Shouk and Al Salam.

In late June, an IPC process led by the Sudanese government found that 14 areas in the country, including parts of El Gezira, Kordofan and Khartoum states, were at risk of famine.

Reuters has reported that some Sudanese have been forced to eat leaves and soil, and that satellite imagery showed cemeteries expanding fast as starvation and disease spread.

A Reuters analysis of satellite images identified 14 burial grounds in Darfur that had expanded rapidly in recent months. One cemetery in Zamzam grew 50% faster in the period between March 28 and May 3 than in the preceding three-and-a-half months. The analysis was used by the famine review committee as indirect evidence of increasing mortality.

The FRC finding comes during Sudan's lean season, when food availability is lowest. Experts fear that even when harvest season comes in October, crops will be scarce because war prevented farmers from planting.

Sudan's war erupted in mid-April last year from a power struggle between Sudan's army and the RSF ahead of an internationally backed political transition towards civilian rule.

The factions had shared power uneasily after staging a coup in 2021 that derailed a previous transition following the overthrow of autocrat Omar al-Bashir two years earlier.

Since the war began, aid workers say international relief has been blocked by the army and looted by the RSF. Both sides deny impeding aid.

Even where markets have supplies, many Sudanese cannot buy food because of soaring prices and a lack of cash.

In February, the military-backed government prohibited aid deliveries from Chad to Darfur through the Adre border crossing, one of the shortest routes to the hunger-stricken region. Government officials have claimed that the crossing is used by the RSF to move weapons.

The alternative Tine border crossing is currently inaccessible because of heavy rain, according to the U.N. humanitarian agency, OCHA.

The FRC called for a ceasefire and "unhindered access" into Darfur.

Sudan's government, which is aligned with the army, has signalled its opposition to any famine declaration.

Al-Harith Idriss, Sudan's envoy at the UN, said in late June that a famine "dictated from above" could lead "ill-wishers to intervene in Sudan".

Nicholas Haan, a member of the FRC and cofounder of the IPC, said he hoped the finding would "shake people, the power brokers, to respond as they need to".

"And that means humanitarian access, that means funding at the level that needs to be funded ... and it means all due political pressure to end the conflict."

The IPC is an initiative of more than a dozen UN agencies, regional bodies and aid groups and is the main global system for measuring food crises. Its most extreme warning is Phase 5, which has two levels, catastrophe and famine. The conditions for classifying an area to be in famine are that at least 20% of the population must be suffering extreme food shortages, with 30% of children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or from malnutrition and disease.

In Zamzam, the FRC said data from Médecins Sans Frontières on acute malnutrition from January 2024 revealed rates exceeding the IPC famine threshold, while the mortality rate reached 1.9 deaths in every 10,000 people per day.

Since the IPC process began, famine has been declared in parts of Somalia in 2011 and in parts of South Sudan in 2017.



Former Regime Elements, Drug Traffickers Targeted in Western Homs and Damascus Campaigns

The Anti-Narcotics Department seizes a drug depot belonging to Maher al-Assad in the Sabura area in the Damascus countryside (Ministry of Interior).
The Anti-Narcotics Department seizes a drug depot belonging to Maher al-Assad in the Sabura area in the Damascus countryside (Ministry of Interior).
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Former Regime Elements, Drug Traffickers Targeted in Western Homs and Damascus Campaigns

The Anti-Narcotics Department seizes a drug depot belonging to Maher al-Assad in the Sabura area in the Damascus countryside (Ministry of Interior).
The Anti-Narcotics Department seizes a drug depot belonging to Maher al-Assad in the Sabura area in the Damascus countryside (Ministry of Interior).

The Syrian Military Operations Administration has been pressing its security campaigns aimed at disarming former regime militia remnants and combating drug traffickers across Syria.

On Tuesday, for the third time, the administration, in collaboration with the General Security Directorate, launched a large-scale operation in western rural Homs. The campaign focused on the villages of Jabbourin Rafain, Al-Haysa, Jabbourin, Qaniyat Al-Assi, Tasnin, Kafrnan, Akrad Al-Dasniya, and their surroundings. Simultaneous campaigns were conducted in Aleppo’s Nairab district, Jaramana in the Damascus countryside, and northern Daraa.

Security sources said the operation in rural Homs targets “remnants of Assad militias who refused to surrender their weapons, arms depots, drug dealers, and traffickers,” according to an official statement from the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). Military reinforcements were dispatched to support the campaign in the targeted areas.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the operation in the village of Jabbourin in rural Hama marked the second such operation within a week. The observatory noted that several civilians and military personnel, including those who had reconciled with the government, were arrested. Some detainees were later released, while others remain under investigation.

Residents in rural Homs expressed significant concern about the proliferation of weapons, incidents of abductions, and the escalating fear of retribution. Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, they noted a prevailing sense of unease and insecurity, as anonymous actors exploit the current chaos to fuel tensions and instability.

The General Security Directorate in Homs has urged residents in western rural Homs villages and towns to fully cooperate with its forces and the Military Operations Administration to ensure the success of the campaign’s objectives.

In Daraa, southern Syria, the Daraa 24 network reported that the General Security Directorate carried out a raid in the city of Izraa, north of Daraa. During the operation, large quantities of weapons were seized, and warnings were issued to individuals still in possession of firearms to surrender them “to preserve the region’s security and stability.”

An earlier security operation in the Lajat region, located between the Suwayda and Daraa governorates, resulted in the arrest of 18 individuals described as former regime remnants, drug traffickers, and arms dealers. The Syrian Interior Ministry also announced the arrest of “remnant elements and members of a gang involved in the theft of weapons from a warehouse in the Mazraa project area of Damascus.”

Meanwhile, the General Security Directorate released several former regime elements in Damascus after verifying their lack of involvement in violations against the Syrian people. According to local sources cited by Syrian Television, several conscripts detained in Adra Prison in Damascus were freed on Tuesday, with additional releases expected in the coming days.

Last week, the General Security Directorate released 360 detainees, including former regime officers, out of approximately 800 people arrested as part of the Homs security campaign. Following investigations, the authorities confirmed that those individuals were not in possession of weapons and had pledged not to engage in activities against the new Syrian administration.