Sudan’s precarious social, political, and economic fabric faces another tear as the Arbaat Dam collapses. What has now become 500 days of war in Sudan is characterized by the fighting between Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group vying for control over the now failing state, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the military forces of the Republic of Sudan. Both sides have exchanged blows since RSF’s attempts at control over the region in mid-April of 2023. Beginning as an outbreak of gunfire and explosions over the city of Khartoum (the capital of Sudan prior to its seizure during this long-standing coup attempt), coupled with the scale of violence seen between the RSF and the Sudanese government’s acting de-facto led military army has left Sudan socially, politically, and economically crippled. The initial fighting in Khartoum, located in the east-central area of Sudan and near the convergence of the Blue and White Nile, spread rapidly throughout Sudan, affecting other major regions like Darfur, now the current RSF stronghold and an area of great strategic importance considering its access to mining sites, major roads, air strips and invaluable water sources (The Guardian Reporting Team, 2024).
The violence has created the world’s largest displacement crisis, with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimating 10.7 million people are now internally displaced in Sudan as of early August, with 755,000 people on the precipice of famine. Repeated failed truces between the two sides have elongated the brutality, which now enters its 73rd week of wide scale violence and little chance for peace negotiations (OCHA 2024).
Amidst this political strife, and civil turmoil, the collapse of the Arbaat Dam this past Saturday in Eastern Sudan’s Red Sea State aggravates the already catastrophic conditions civilians face regarding water, food, and healthcare access (Al Jazeera 2024). According to local reports, the Arbaat Dam, located roughly 25 miles northwest from Port Sudan, burst late at night on the 24th pf August. Subsequent impacts on the neighboring vicinities have been devastating, with reports of over 30 deaths and the displacement of over 50,000 civilians in areas west of the dam collapse (roughly 77% of the total population in the region). Expectations were outlined by OCHA for this death toll to increase, as humanitarian aid workers racing to deliver invaluable support to the survivors of the disaster have been met with inaccessible roads and dangerously damaged infrastructure (OCHA 2024).
The dam, built to store both spring and rainwater, with a reservoir capacity of 25 million cubic meters, is an integral source of freshwater for Port Sudan, which has become the acting de-facto capital of Sudan as declared by the Sudanese Armed Forces. Located in the eastern region of Sudan, the city serves as a place of refuge from the brutal violence underway as the civil war continues to escalate in cities such as Khartoum. Port Sudan is currently under authority by the SAF and serves as a key hub for refugees fleeing the war as well as a center for logistics for the Sudanese Armed Forces. Port Sudan’s proximity to the Red Sea coast makes it vital as a port of entry for aid and support from international organizations as well as a strategic stronghold during the war. Reported damage by local agencies, received in delay due to impacts on telecommunications ravaged by the dam’s failure and subsequent flash flooding indicate there will be significant impact to water supplies in the city (Khaled, 2024).
In addition to more obvious failures in civilian infrastructure as a result of the dam collapse, including the increase in food and water insecurity throughout the region as aid becomes increasingly difficult to supply and the continued compounding of cholera outbreaks, which has already led to over 650 cases and 28 deaths, humanitarian agencies have also expressed deep concern regarding the long term impacts of the dam’s burst on the agricultural sector. Floodwaters, which contain large amounts of silt, have created not only short term impacts on agricultural land, including the loss of over 10,000 heads of livestock, but also threaten to damage the fertility of the soil due to silt’s water retention properties in now waterlogged fields, its interference with the photosynthesis process, and the subsequent drying of the silt, which may make the soil too stiff for proper crop growth (OCHA 2024).
In areas already facing extreme food insecurities as a result of controlled and limited aid supplies as Sudan’s political landscape makes humanitarian relief increasingly more dangerous, coupled with what Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) characterizes as a “…shameful response…” from foreign actors and international humanitarian organizations that have failed to relieve regions of Sudan from starvation, child malnutrition, and widespread disease outbreaks, the dam’s collapse also comes during the country’s lean season (Doctors Without Borders, 2024). Running from early May to late September, this season is characterized by the decrease in harvested food availability, and the coupling of this seasonal decline in available harvest and the dam’s burst means reports from June, which estimated more than half the population of Sudan (roughly 25.6 million people) were experiencing a hunger crisis, is expected to increase significantly (Lewis & Eltahir, 2024).
In addition to the 70 villages that the dam’s burst has reported to have directly affected, (with 20 villages declared destroyed), flooding has also led to the collapse of 80 boreholes, which are integral to communities in need of sustained access to fresh water necessary for cooking, cleaning, washing, and drinking (Khaled, 2024). Boreholes, narrow shafts dug vertically and horizontally to access underground freshwater, have been some villages’ only source of clean water during the unfolding crises in the region. The collapse of these boreholes means a larger dependence on the already limited supplies of aid brought in by humanitarian agencies and the continued breakdown of civilian infrastructure throughout Sudan (Loyce, 2020).
Continued violence in the region leading to a bottleneck in the deliverance of sustenance to communities on the brink of starvation, coupled with the country’s current lean season and torrential weather, many aid organizations are citing the imminent possibility of region wide famine, which has only formally been declared in the Zamzam IDP Camp as of September 3rd, 2024 (US Office of Press Relations, 2024).
Located in the Al Fasher, North Darfur State, this classification of food shortage in the IDP Camp means there is quantitative proof of extreme deprivation of food, where starvation, malnutrition, and death are likely transpiring in the contested area. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which plays a critical role in identifying famine conditions, the following are indicators of famine (which have presented themselves both in the Zamzam IDP camp as well as beginning to manifest in 14 other areas in Sudan): 20% of households facing an extreme lack of food, 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition, and the deaths of two people (or four children) for every 10,000 occur daily due to either outright starvation or interactions associated with malnutrition and disease (Fact Sheet: IPC FAMINE 2024). South Sudan in 2017 was the only other time a region in Sudan was classified as reaching criteria that indicates famine conditions, after similar waves of violence due to civil war and an ailing economy contributed to the structural collapse of food distribution and resources in the region (Lewis & Eltahir, 2024).
There are multiple concerns now raised concerning the collapse of the dam and the subsequent impacts on Sudan, which has already begun demonstrating similar collapses of civilian infrastructure as noted in 2017 in the southern region. Without the dam providing clean water, combined with its impacts on accessibility for aid organizations, which now must navigate flooded terrain and impacted infrastructure, it is likely the conditions in Sudan will worsen without incredible measures taken to alleviate the impacts of the dam’s burst.
Works Cited
Fact Sheet: IPC Famine. Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. (2024, March). https://www.un.org/unispal/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IPC_Famine_Factsheet.pdf
Guardian Reporting Team. (2024, April 15). What caused the Civil War in Sudan and how has it become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/22/what-caused-the-civil-war-in-sudan-and-how-has-it-become-one-of-the-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crises
Khaled, F. (2024, August 27). A dam collapse in eastern Sudan kills at least 30 people following heavy rains, a UN agency says. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/sudan-dam-collapse-flooding-red-sea-state-58e5b7f2911f63d5ae1421b0da832991
Lewis, A., & Eltahir, N. (2024, June 27). Sudan faces famine risk in 14 areas, Global Hunger Monitor says | Reuters. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/global-hunger-monitor-says-sudan-faces-risk-famine-14-areas-2024-06-27/
Loyce, N. (2020, October 7). Providing safe drinking water to local communities in south sudan. IOM South Sudan. https://southsudan.iom.int/stories/providing-safe-drinking-water-local-communities-south-sudans-capital
OCHA. (2024, August 26). Sudan: Collapse of Arba’at Dam in Port Sudan, Red Sea State (26 August 2024) [en/ar] – sudan. ReliefWeb. https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-collapse-arbaat-dam-port-sudan-red-sea-state-26-august-2024-enar
Sudan: 500 Days of War have triggered a massive humanitarian crisis. Doctors Without Borders – USA. (2024, August 26). https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/sudan-500-days-war-have-triggered-massive-humanitarian-crisis
US Office of Press Relations. (2024, August 2). Famine Review Committee confirms famine in Sudan’s Zamzam IDP Camp: Press release: Africa. U.S. Agency for International Development. https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/aug-01-2024-famine-review-committee-confirms-famine-sudans-zamzam-idp-camp
Videos show huge torrent from Sudan Dam Burst. Al Jazeera. (2024, August 27). https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/8/27/videos-show-huge-torrent-from-sudan-dam-burst