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.  

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

In Chad, we provide basic healthcare, 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.

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 running emergency activities in Abyei special administrative area and Juba to provide the refugees and returnees with healthcare services, including care for war-related injuries. In Renk, we are working to care for refugees and returnees, including by treating war-related injuries. After a cholera outbreak was declared in Renk, MEDSF teams vaccinated people in Renk, Malkal, Rubkona, and Juba, as well as in Gorom refugee camp.

 

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.