Darfur’s Struggle to Eliminate Child Malnutrition

In the conflict-torn region of Darfur, where a decade-long struggle has led to widespread population displacements, food shortages and public health issues, child malnutrition remains an ongoing problem.

By Sharon Lukunka
 

At the in-patient ward of one of the health centres in the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people in North Darfur, the staff nutritionists say the condition of 21-month-old Mustapha has improved significantly since he arrived two weeks earlier. When his mother checked him in, he weighed a mere 7.8 kilogrammes. He was admitted to the centre for severe acute malnutrition and skin eczema. Mustapha’s case, unfortunately, is not uncommon in Darfur, where a decade-long conflict has led to widespread population displacements, food shortages and public health issues.

Dr. Nazir Abdulmajid, the officer in charge of the children’s health centre in Abu Shouk where Mustapha is receiving treatment, explains that the number of malnutrition cases among children under five years old increases from June to October each year. This period in Darfur, he says, is when farmers plant their crops and work the land. “A lot of mothers, especially those in camps for displaced people, have no means of making a living, so they must rely mostly on the crops they grow for food,” he says, explaining that during the dry season, which runs from November to May, many families run short of food.

Ms. Khadija Abdallah, Mustapha’s mother, is one of many thousands of mothers living in camps for displaced people. She says that during the rainy season, she must return to her home area of Korma, North Darfur, to cultivate her land so she can put food on her family’s table. When she travels to Korma to work the land, she brings young Mustapha with her. “I don’t have anyone to care for my child while I am away,” she says. “I try to bring as much food and water as I can to sustain him.”

[...]

On 30 September 2013, in one of the health clinics in the Abu Shouk camp, a nurse examines a child. The health clinic is run by nongovernmental organisation Patients Helping Fund, with the support of UN agencies and the Government of Sudan. Photo by Albert González Farran, UNAMID.