Hundreds of thousands lack adequate shelter at Sudan’s Tawila camp

What Happened

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that the Daba Naira camp in Tawila, North Darfur, is hosting over 665,000 displaced people, a figure that more than doubled between March and September 2025. While the IOM and the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority have erected 3,000 new tents, regional officials state this is insufficient to meet the needs of the population, which faces acute shortages of food, medicine, and clean water. The humanitarian situation is further exacerbated by the onset of the rainy season and the spread of diseases such as cholera and watery diarrhoea. Abdelbagi Mohamed Hamid, the minister of social welfare and humanitarian affairs coordinator in the Darfur region, stated that Turkiye has allocated 30,000 tents for distribution across Darfur and Kordofan. However, humanitarian access remains severely restricted by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who maintain checkpoints along vital supply routes and have been accused by local activists of looting and extorting aid convoys. Regional officials, including Minister of Agriculture Al-Sadiq Barango, have warned that the collapse of agricultural infrastructure and the inability of farmers to access land have created conditions for a potential famine that may exceed the lethality of the ongoing conflict.

Key Actors

Why It Matters

The crisis in Tawila illustrates the catastrophic intersection of mass displacement, infrastructure collapse, and the weaponization of aid access in the Darfur region. As the population in displacement camps swells, the inability of humanitarian actors to bypass RSF-controlled checkpoints threatens to turn acute food insecurity into a widespread famine, further destabilizing the region and increasing the mortality rate among vulnerable populations.

Watch For

Monitor the status of the Tina border crossing, which regional officials identify as a critical point for potential aid delivery. Additionally, observe whether the distribution of the remaining 27,000 Turkish-supplied tents proceeds despite the security constraints imposed by RSF checkpoints and the logistical challenges posed by the rainy season.