Fire kills child, displaces hundreds from camp in Sudan's Darfur

TAWILA - A massive fire at a displacement camp in Sudan killed one child and left hundreds of people homeless after they had already been forced to flee the fighting ravaging the country.

Since April 2023, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 12 million.

The "catastrophic" fire broke out on Monday at Al-Omda camp near the city of Tawila in North Darfur, according to Abu Bakr Haroun, deputy head of the camp's management committee.

He said the fire killed a three-year-old child, injured 13 other people, destroyed 548 homes and killed many animals.

The UN's International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday that the fire displaced 514 families to open areas in Tawila.

Haroun told AFP that the fire was "perhaps the worst we have seen in all our years in North Darfur".

Camp resident Omar Abdullah Ahmed spoke of an "urgent need for shoes and blankets".

"I lost all my money in the fire. We lost everything. We weren't even able to take anything out of our homes. They were completely burnt down," he told AFP.

AFP photos from inside the camp show piles of ashes where people's tents once stood.

The few homes that were not consumed by the fire were covered by a layer of black soot.

Humanitarian organisations have provided clean water and food, but Haroun said it was "not enough to meet 10 percent of the needs", and added that only two of the camp's public kitchens were functioning.

"We need tents for people to take refuge in. There are no blankets, and the cold temperature at night is very harsh," he said.

Tawila is currently hosting hundreds of thousands of displaced people from El-Fasher and other North Darfur towns, with limited resources and depleted infrastructure.

The conflict in Sudan has effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the north, centre and east while the RSF and its allies control the west and parts of the south.