Chad

Over 800,000 refugees and returnees have crossed the border from Sudan to Chad, according to UNHCR. People are living in camps in Chad and are facing difficulties securing even their most basic needs. With a lack of water, food, proper shelter, and healthcare people are suffering from diarrhoea, malnutrition, and malaria.  

MSF teams are responding in three border regions, Sila, Wadi Fira, and Ouaddaï.

In Chad, we provide general and specialised healthcare, surgery, malnutrition screening and treatment, vaccinations, and sexual and reproductive healthcare through existing local health facilities, and mobile clinics. Our teams have also begun digging boreholes to supply camps and local communities with water. In some places, we provide refugee communities with plastic sheeting, mosquito nets and bars of soap, which are crucial to prevent the spread of malaria and diarrhoea.

MSF also works with the Ministry of Public Health and other organisations to provide patient care and support for epidemics affecting refugee and host communities. This includes supporting vaccination and cold chain management in the communities and transit camps in Adré, Aboutenge, Irdimi, Tulum, Metché, Tiné, and Allacha.

South Sudan 

Since the eruption of conflict in Sudan, over 1 million people have crossed into South Sudan to seek refuge according to UNHCR. This influx has overwhelmed the already dire humanitarian situation in the country. Our teams are providing care in Abyei special administrative area, through a hospital with the capacity for specialist care and surgical services, and in Mayen Abun, Twic County, through general and specialist services. In Renk County, we are working to care for refugees and returnees, including by treating war-related injuries and supporting the Ministry of Health with the provision of care at a general healthcare centre in Gosfami, a refugee settlement. There, we are also providing drinking water. The worsening humanitarian crisis in South Sudan needs urgent international prioritisation. Communities are facing overlapping crises and the current response is failing to meet people’s rising needs across the country.

 

1. Attacks must stop now. The warring parties cannot continue to inflict severe suffering on people by killing, raping, and attacking civilians, destroying livelihoods and infrastructure, and displacing people.

2. Safe and unhindered humanitarian access must be granted now. Every attack or obstruction against health workers and facilities, and humanitarian aid, puts lives in danger and cuts off communities from the care they need.

3. Urgent and coordinated action is needed now to provide people with healthcare, clean water, sanitation services, and shelter. The overcrowded conditions and lack of basic services in camps in Sudan, and in those for people fleeing outside of Sudan, are delaying care and fuelling disease.

4. Urgent and coordinated action is needed to provide food, therapeutic food, and essential care for malnutrition. Widespread food insecurity is driving child malnutrition, and more must be done to prevent deaths and long-term harm.

5. Urgent action is needed to expand the availability of secure shelters, obstetric care, and general medical and psychological care for survivors of sexual violence. Sexual violence and the collapse of sexual and reproductive health services are leaving people exposed to trauma and preventable deaths.

6. The humanitarian response must be urgently funded, and humanitarian aid must be brought to besieged areas in Sudan. The humanitarian response in Sudan is currently underfunded, deprioritised, and stalled by a lack of will both in Sudan and internationally.