Cholera Outbreak Devastates Sudan Refugee Camps

In the cholera-stricken refugee camps of western Sudan, every second is infected by fear. Faster than a person can boil water over an open flame, the flies descend, and everything is contaminated once more.

Cholera is ripping through the camps of Tawila in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have been left with nothing but the water they can boil to serve as both disinfectant and medicine.

We mix lemon in the water when we have it and drink it as medicine, said Mona Ibrahim, who has been living for two months in a hastily erected camp in Tawila.

We have no other choice, she said, seated on the bare ground.

Nearly half a million people sought shelter in and around Tawila from the nearby besieged city of el-Fasher and the Zamzam displacement camp in April, following attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with Sudan’s army since April 2023.

The first cholera cases in Tawila were detected in early June in the village of Tabit, about 25km (16 miles) south, said Sylvain Penicaud, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF.

After two weeks, we started identifying cases directly in Tawila, particularly in the town’s displacement camps, said Penicaud.

In the past month, more than 1,500 cases have been treated in Tawila alone, he said, while the United Nations children’s agency says about 300 of the town’s children have contracted the disease since April.

Across North Darfur state, more than 640,000 children under the age of five are at risk, according to UNICEF.

If you’d like to read more, visit: Al Jazeera – Cholera Outbreak Devastates Sudan Refugee Camps