PORT SUDAN: The Zamzam camp for displaced people in Darfur was targeted by air strikes on Sunday night, days after a UN-backed body issued a report that the war in Sudan had caused famine, two NGOs said Monday.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a statement that “the Zamzam camp was bombed on Sunday evening.”
For its part, the General Coordination of Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur pointed to the bombing of “warplanes Zamzam camp for displaced people,” which shelters between 300,000 and 500,000 displaced people.
The Sudanese army is the only party with warplanes.
Among those displaced are many who have fled fierce fighting in the nearby city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
El Fasher is the only capital of the five Darfur states not controlled by the RSF and has been relatively spared the fighting for a long time.
Sunday’s strikes destroyed 20 homes, “injured four children” and led to “a state of fear and panic among displaced people in the camp”, the coordinator said.
The strikes come a few days after a UN-backed body issued a report that the camp was experiencing famine.
The IPC review, used by UN agencies, concluded that “famine continues on July July 2024 in Zamzam camp.”
“The main factors of famine in Zamzam camp are conflict and the inability to deliver humanitarian aid,” she said.
But Sudan denied there was a famine in the Zamzam camp for displaced people in North Darfur state.
The Sudanese Humanitarian Aid Commission said in a statement that “talk about the existence of famine in the camp is inconsistent with the elements and conditions that must be met to declare famine.”
Fighting erupted in Sudan on April April 2023 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Both camps are accused of war crimes, deliberately targeting civilians and obstructing humanitarian access.
The war has killed tens of thousands. More than ten million people have been displaced inside Sudan or sought refuge in neighbouring countries since the fighting erupted, according to UN figures.
As the country descended into what the United Nations has described as “one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent memory”, the majority of aid operations have been suspended due to violence.
Al-Yurea / (AFP)
