Sudan

Sudan was once the largest and most geographically diverse state in Africa, and was also home to one of the continent’s longest-running civil wars.

Fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in Sudan, where we respond by providing medical care for malnutrition, diarrhoeal diseases and malaria.

Médecins Sans Frontières has been working in Sudan since 1979, and following the split between Sudan and its Southern counterpart in 2011, has continued to assist displaced people, carry out vaccination campaigns, and support local medical infrastructure. 

In 2021, we started a project in Mygoma orphanage, in Khartoum, supporting medical care and referrals for infants and young children and improving hygiene measures, while continuing to run our Omdurman project, providing basic healthcare and emergency services for refugees, displaced people and host communities. 

We also started running a nutrition ward for children with moderate to severe malnutrition in Ad-Damazine teaching hospital in the Blue Nile region. 

Since November 2020, we have been working in Al-Gedaref and Kassala states,  assisting both Ethiopian refugees and local communities with basic and maternal healthcare, vaccinations, malnutrition screening, water and sanitation, and treatment for neglected tropical diseases in health centres and in the camps.

Refugee Care in Sudan 

MSF staff provide medical care and surgical services to displaced peoples in various Sudanese regions. Teams distribute relief items, improve water and sanitation, malnutrition screenings, and support intervention campaigns targeting diseases such as dengue fever through case management, vector control, and active surveillance.

Unsustainable Camp Conditions 

The cramped conditions and a lack of toilet facilities in refugee camps increases the risks of measles and gastrointestinal infections. MSF teams have focused on improving sanitation and hygiene in the region’s camps by constructing latrines, as well as running community health promotion activities.

MSF teams contribute to the upgrading of the sanitation standards with the construction of latrines, as well as organising community health promotion activities, with the aim of increasing the awareness on health behaviour.

In East Darfur, MSF is working in Kario refugee camp, which hosts some 20,000 refugees from South Sudan. Teams coordinate outbreaks, and organise vaccination campaigns against communicable diseases such as measles.

Tawila, in North Darfur, is home to almost 75,000 internally displaced people. MSF teams provide much-needed support in the overwhelmed health facility where malnutrition, diarrhoeal diseases and malaria are the common referrals.

Neglected Diseases 

Sudan has the highest rate of kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis) in East Africa, nearly 70% of national cases are concentrated in Al-Gedaref. This parasitic disease, which is transmitted by sandflies, has a 95 %mortality rate if left untreated.

MSF provides free diagnosis and case management support to hospitals in this region, organises awareness-raising activities in the community, and conducts training for local health professionals. 

In Al Kashafa,MSF's hospital functions as a referral point for other camps, and it has the only nutritional stabilisation centre in the area. The most serious medical cases are referred to Kosti hospital, 80 kilometres away.

Nearly half of all consultations are for local people living around Al Kashafa camp, which includes the host Sudanese community and refugees from the camps. Before MSF arrived, the local community had very few alternatives when it came to medical care and the MSF hospital has become a point of reference for the local population as well. MSF aims to encourage the local population to seek out professional medical care, rather than relying on traditional medicine, by providing free medical care. 

Find out more about Sudan