KHARTOUM, Sudan

A fire tore through a displacement camp in Sudan’s North Darfur state, leaving 60 families without shelter, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday.

The UN agency said the blaze erupted at Al-Omda camp in the Tawila area, destroying around 50 shelters and partially damaging others. The displaced families were moved to open areas within the same locality.

Thousands of internally displaced people reside in Al-Omda in makeshift shelters constructed from wood, straw and other highly flammable materials.

The cause of the incident has not yet been identified.

Earlier Tuesday, the IOM said that a fire at the camp displaced 237 families, destroying 158 shelters and damaging 79 others.

Last week, the Tawila Emergency Rooms Coordination Council, a local relief body, said a child was killed and around 1,500 families were affected after a separate fire razed 250 shelters at the same camp.

Sudan has been locked in a bloody conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, killing tens of thousands, displacing about 13 million people, and creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to UN reports.

*Writing by Tarek Chouiref