olivia-hartono
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Sudanese seeking refuge in North Darfur are confronting an escalating humanitarian emergency as acute shortages of shelter, food, and medical care leave families exposed to harsh weather and rapidly spreading diseases. In the Daba Naira camp, situated in the town of Tawila roughly 68 kilometres west of the conflict-ravaged regional capital of el-Fasher, conditions are deteriorating swiftly despite recent international relief operations.
Aid organizations, spearheaded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, have recently erected 3,000 blue emergency tents across the camp. However, humanitarian officials stress that this assistance represents only a fraction of what is needed. According to figures released by the IOM, more than 665,000 displaced individuals are currently gathered in the area, rendering the available shelter provisions overwhelmingly insufficient.
The timing of the crisis has heightened concerns among aid workers, as the arrival of emergency tents coincides with the onset of the seasonal rains. The low-lying terrain of the displacement camps is vulnerable to severe waterlogging and risks transforming into vast swamps, compounding the suffering of families who have already endured camp fires and the deterioration of their makeshift canopies. Deprived of basic protection against torrential downpours, scorching daytime heat, and nighttime chill, hundreds of thousands are left with minimal shelter.
Regional authorities have sought to mobilize wider international assistance to close the massive aid gap. Abdelbagi Mohamed Hamid, the Darfur region’s minister of social welfare and humanitarian affairs coordinator, explained that the regional administration actively appealed to international donors, including the Turkish ambassador, to secure critical emergency housing supplies.
Following these appeals, Turkiye allocated 30,000 emergency tents intended for distribution across the Darfur and Kordofan regions through the IOM. Within Tawila's Daba Naira camp, 3,000 of an expected 6,000 shelters have been set up so far. Additionally, 2,450 tents were dispatched to the Salam, al-Wihda, and al-Nakheel camps located within the Shaeria locality across South and East Darfur.
Despite these ongoing logistics, Minister Hamid highlighted significant regional disparities in access and relief delivery. He noted that the Malha locality remains the area in most desperate need of humanitarian relief within Darfur, followed closely by the Tina, Karnoy, and Um Baru districts. Hamid emphasized that reopening the Tina border crossing is essential to transport vital consignments of food, medicine, and fuel to isolated communities whose distress has been severely compounded by the ongoing conflict.
Government officials and relief agencies have also cautioned that addressing the shelter deficit alone will not halt the burgeoning disaster. Hamid warned that providing tents cannot sufficiently resolve the crisis while the danger of famine continues to rise. He stressed that widespread starvation could potentially cause more fatalities than the military hostilities themselves, particularly as relief convoys encounter immense barriers in reaching vulnerable populations.
The IOM has sounded the alarm over an expanding health crisis inside the overcrowded encampments. With basic sanitation infrastructure largely absent and clean drinking water in severe deficit, waterborne illnesses and communicable infections are surging. Health workers report rising incidences of cholera, acute watery diarrhoea, and skin infections, while humanitarian agencies struggle to scale up basic services at a rate that matches the unrelenting pace of displacement.
Displaced residents in Daba Naira describe a daily struggle for basic survival. Ahmed Mousa, who escaped the heavy fighting in el-Fasher, reported that the newly distributed shelters fail to meet even ten percent of the camp’s pressing needs. He noted that countless families remain forced to sleep exposed to the open elements and heavy rains, watching their children fall ill without access to basic medical care.
Another displaced resident, Fatima Ibrahim, conveyed the bitter reality confronting those who fled urban warfare in search of safety, only to encounter life-threatening hunger and sickness. She explained that families watch the newly erected tents from a distance while remaining trapped in extreme hardship, noting that many people are perishing from hunger and untreated illnesses while sleeping directly on the bare ground without medicine or protection.
Compounding the crisis is a catastrophic decline in local agricultural production. Darfur's Minister of Agriculture, Al-Sadiq Barango, warned that the threat of famine may prove far more devastating than armed combat. He pointed to a severe drop in seasonal rainfall, alongside the widespread drying up of arable farmland and livestock grazing pastures across the region.
Barango stated that the war has forced vast numbers of local farmers to flee their fields, while armed groups have targeted and destroyed vital cultivated lands, particularly fruit orchards and commercial cash-crop plantations. Describing the current indicators as ominous precursors to a widespread catastrophe, the minister appealed for immediate international intervention to save thousands from starvation amid the near-total breakdown of Darfur’s agricultural foundations.
The displacement wave into Tawila is part of a broader human catastrophe unleashed by the conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Violence in major urban hubs, including assaults on established displacement hubs like the Zamzam camp, has forced countless civilians—many bearing scars of detention, torture, and severe trauma—to undertake perilous journeys toward precarious settlement sites like Daba Naira.
As humanitarian operations fall short of the overwhelming requirements on the ground, officials and aid agencies warn that without immediate access corridors, expanded supplies, and comprehensive food and medical distributions, the hundreds of thousands sheltering across North Darfur remain at grave risk of catastrophe.
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