Sudan: Surge in Darfur displacement pushes Tawila into full-scale crisis, cholera spreading
Port Sudan, Sudan (PANA) - An international charity organization has rung the alarm bell about an imminent catastrophe in a new Darfur location where people escaping from shelling and siege in Al Fashir are now facing full scale crisis and a spread of cholera.
The Norwagean Refugees Council (NRCA) has issued an urgent appeal, warning that there is currently a massive increase in people fleeing to Tawila in North Darfur over the last three months "propelling the small town into a full-scale humanitarian crisis".
“With the rainy season starting, hundreds of thousands of people who just barely escaped horror are bracing themselves for torrential storms, cholera outbreak and spiraling hunger,” The NRC said in a press release on Friday.
It is to be noted that since April 2025, Tawila, has absorbed nearly 379,000 people fleeing repeated campaigns of mass destruction and year-long siege on Zamzam Camp and Al Fashir, where famine has also been confirmed. Most are women (70 per cent), children, and people with disabilities, arriving into camps, mostly on foot after days of fleeing for their lives.
The release detailed that four new camps were set up to cope with the spiraling numbers and humanitarian organizations are overwhelmed, with prepositioned aid ahead of the rainy season already depleted.
“The situation in Tawila is collapsing,” NRC’s Sudan Country Director Shashwat Saraf, was quoted as saying, adding that “Families are surviving on scraps, sleeping in the dirt under roof made out of straw, with barely any access to clean water and toilets.
"Cases of cholera are rising, and the rainy season is approaching fast, making living conditions more miserable.”
According to the press release, the families in the camps have been fleeing scenes of extreme violence: April’s raid on Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps left up to 400 dead, many raped, aid workers killed, and survivors risking their lives to flee into Tawila in desperation.
Since April 2023, 782,000 people have been displaced from Al Fashir and Zamzam, including nearly 500,000 in April–May 2025 alone.
The release said that a separate assessment by aid agencies and local authorities in Al Fasher found 38 per cent of children under 5 at displacement sites suffer from acute malnutrition, 11 per cent with severe acute malnutrition.
“The window for saving thousands of lives is closing fast,” Saraf added.
“We need funding and decisive action from the world’s leaders to get aid trucks and relief teams to Tawila – without delays and restrictions from the warring parties – before this spiral completely out of control.”
Around 781,998 individuals were displaced from Al Fashir town and Zamzam IDP Camp since April 2023. In April and May 2025, 498,955 IDPs were displaced from Zamzam IDP Camp in Sudan – almost the entirety of the population previously recorded.
-0-PANA MO/RA 11July2025
