Rhino: Agencies – There is a risk of an acute shortage of food to treat malnourished children in the Zamzam camp for internally displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur state, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Sunday.
The more than 15-month war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has caused the world’s largest internal displacement crisis and left 25 million people, or half the population, in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
“Our teams only have enough therapeutic food for malnourished children in Zamzam camp in Sudan for another two weeks,” MSF said in a post on its website. It added that it had been forced to curtail treatment because the RSF was blocking access to supply trucks.
The RSF said it was protecting aid convoys and was ready to co-operate with any aid agencies.
Without treatment, children suffering from acute malnutrition are at risk of dying within three to six weeks, MSF said.
The organization said the bed occupancy rate in the malnutrition ward was 126 per cent, “indicating that many children are already in critical condition”.
The IFSC Famine Review Committee concluded in early August that the war in Sudan caused the famine in “Zamzam” and added that similar conditions may exist elsewhere in the region.
