MSF suspends activities in Sudan’s Zamzam camp amid security fears

By Devin Watkins

French medical charity Doctors Without Borders has suspended its aid activities in the Zamzam camp in Sudan’s North Darfur.

Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, says all roads around the famine-stricken camp are blocked and that the security situation has become “unbearable.”

Around half a million internally displaced persons (IDPs) are living in the Zamzam camp, many of whom hail from Abu Zerega, Shagra, and Saluma.

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the rebel Rapid Support Forces in the area has disrupted movement into and around the camp.

Since April 2023, the conflict has killed at least 20,000 people and forced more than 14 million from their homes.

MSF said two of its ambulances were shot at in December and January as they carried patients from Zamzam to the regional hub of El Fasher. One of the incidents killed a woman accompanying her sister in the ambulance.

The charity’s project coordinator in North Darfur, Marion Ramstein, said the decision was “heartbreaking” but necessary since the security situation had worsened.

“We know that we left the population with no other support,” she said.

Ms. Ramstein said MSF will return to Zamzam camp, which is experiencing famine.

Several international experts tracking hunger with the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said in 2024 that the camp was enduring “the worst form of hunger.”

The MSF project coordinator said the organization had treated many young children suffering from anemia.

The charity screened nearly 30,000 children during a vaccination campaign in September 2024 and found that 34 percent of children had acute malnutrition.