Darfur

Violent clashes in Sudan's Darfur region have driven tens of thousands of people across the border into Chad, where a lack of food, water, shelter, and basic services is developing into a humanitarian crisis.

MSF helped provide urgent medical care at El Seraif hospital to 121 wounded people, including two children, following recent violence in Jebel Amir, North Darfur state.

MSF coordinator Fernando Medina discusses the situation in North Darfur, where tribal clashes have forced nearly 100,000 people to flee their homes.

Increasing restrictions imposed by Sudanese authorities have forced MSF to suspend most of its medical activities in the Jebel Si region of North Darfur State in Sudan. 

In the remote Jebel Si area of North Darfur, a series of obstacles threaten to seriously hamper MSF's ability to provide medical assistance.

Renewed fighting between government forces and opposition groups in North Darfur state over the last two months has forced thousands of families to flee from their villages.

Following deadly violence that took place in the Tabarat market in Tawila, North Darfur State, MSF provided urgent care to 46 wounded male patients, including one child.

Taking advantage of improved security, MSF has renovated and opened a new hospital in North Darfur, giving the area's inhabitants much greater access to healthcare services.

Staff members are mostly from Darfur, and have felt the impact of the conflict in their daily lives. Both they and the patients they tend to have experienced immense loss, yet they carry on with dignity and give generously to one another.

Following the expulsion of the Dutch and French sections of MSF by the Sudanese government in March 2009, three MSF sections continue working in Northern Sudan, in the western region of Darfur, Al-Gedaref State, and the Red Sea State.

In five areas of North and West Darfur, a total of 23 international staff and 567 national staff are running MSF projects.

Amsterdam/Paris/New York, April 23, 2009 — The Dutch and French sections of MSF reiterate their grave concern for the patients left behind in Darfur and denounce the unacceptable conditions of their expulsion.

MSF remains fully committed to providing impartial medical assistance to the people of Sudan. Consequently, MSF is currently engaging in direct discussions with the Sudanese authorities in order to continue to deliver emergency medical aid in Darfur and elsewhere in northern Sudan.

By Dr. Christophe Fournier
International Council President
Doctors Without Borders

Khartoum/Brussels/New York, March 14, 2009 – Four Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff kidnapped on March 11 in Serif Umra, North Darfur, Sudan, were safely released today, March 14, 2009.

MSF cannot confirm reports that our team, abducted on Wednesday March 11 from Serif Umra, North Darfur, has been released.

MSF confirms that  we managed to speak again to our colleagues, abducted on Wednesday March 11 from Serif Umra, North Darfur, Sudan. MSF confirms that they are in good health and cannot comment further about this.

MSF confirms reports that three of its international staff were abducted last night in Serif Umra, in the Sudanese province of North Darfur. Two of MSF's Sudanese staff were taken at the same time; however, they have since been released.

The expulsion of foreign aid groups from Sudan's Darfur region amid a meningitis outbreak in some refugee camps could dramatically push up mortality rates, says an MSF aid worker forced to leave the country.

This expulsion has serious medical and humanitarian consequences for the population of Darfur, one of which is that the outbreaks of meningitis in Kalma camp and at the base of Jebel Marra mountain range will possibly go without a medical response.

Geneva/Paris/Khartoum/New York, March 5, 2009 – Sudanese authorities in Khartoum this morning demanded the immediate expulsion of a second section of the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from Darfur.

The Government of Sudan has told Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) it must remove all international staff from a number of projects in West and South Darfur by Wednesday, March 4, 2009.

Nairobi/Khartoum/Amsterdam/New York, March 4, 2009 – The Government of Sudan today informed the Dutch section of the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) that they are expelled from Darfur. This follows a previous order issued March 2 for MSF to remove all international staff from a number of project sites in Darfur. The organization is outraged at the decision, which leaves more than 200,000 of its patients without essential medical care.

An MSF team has returned to Muhajariya in South Darfur where an estimated 35,000 people have been affected by heavy fighting. The team had been forced to leave for four weeks.

Following heavy fighting in Muhajariya, South Darfur, on January 15, MSF temporarily relocated most of its medical team to Nyala, the regional capital, about 80 km (50 miles) away. The team learned that the MSF base in Muhajariya was completely destroyed by fire, however, the MSF clinic remains functional.

As of December 2008, MSF has 102 international staff and 1,625 national staff working in Darfur.

At the instruction of the Sudanese Humanitarian Aid Commission and the Federal Ministry of Health, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) must close the mental health counseling component of its activities in South Darfur.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is extremely concerned about recent comments made by Sudanese government representatives that the organization's activities in South Darfur may be suspended after October 31.

MSF has evacuated 49 patients suffering from gunshot wounds from Kalma camp to the hospital of Nyala in Darfur, Sudan.

At least 65 patients who were wounded in shooting early this morning in Kalma camp, one of the largest camps for displaced people in Darfur, Sudan, have been admitted to the MSF clinic there.

Khartoum/Barcelona, August 1, 2008 — The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been forced to evacuate its staff from Tawila and Shangil Tobaya in North Darfur, after a series of violent assaults against MSF staff.

The conflict that began five years ago as a battle between Sudan’s government and two Darfuri rebel groups has developed into a far more complex disaster. While the large-scale, destructive attacks that marked the first few years of fighting are no longer frequent, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) sees a different kind of emergency developing. Continue Reading »

Interactive

DARFUR EMERGENCY TIMELINE

Explore MSF's response to the conflict in Darfur from 2003 to August 2008 through photos and links to MSF stories.

The conflict that began five years ago as a battle between Sudan’s government and two Darfuri rebel groups has developed into a far more complex disaster. While the large-scale, destructive attacks that marked the first few years of fighting are no longer frequent, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) sees a different kind of emergency developing. Continue Reading »

Interactive

DARFUR EMERGENCY TIMELINE

Explore MSF's response to the conflict in Darfur from 2003 to August 2008 through photos and links to MSF stories.

MSF projects in Darfur.

Chris Sauer, a fire chief in the Lake Tahoe area of California, has been on five assignments with MSF since 1998, most recently in Tawila in North Darfur. Sauer served as interim project coordinator from February to March 2008. Here, he describes his experience.

In February, bombings and attacks on villages in parts of West Darfur, Sudan, led to an influx of thousands of refugees into the Birak region of eastern Chad. MSF teams have been providing assistance by distributing essential relief items to the refugees and administering nutrient-fortified, ready-to-use foods (RUF) to prevent and treat malnutrition. As a new wave of refugees arrives in Birak from the Jebel Moon region in Darfur, MSF is distributing an additional round of relief items, setting up mobile medical clinics, and organizing a measles vaccination campaign alongside another distribution of RUF.

Geneva/Birak, Chad, February 13, 2008 – From February 8-10, the Sudanese army, assisted by militias, launched a large offensive in northwest Darfur. This military offensive, one of the most violent over the past few years, resulted in an immediate population displacement and the forced interruption of all medical activities in Seleia, where Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had been running a health center since 2006.

As peace talks get underway in Libya, international attention will be focused once again on Darfur. Four years on the conflict continues. The fighting may be less intense than it was in 2003-2004, but it has become increasingly complex.

The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) evacuated a team of 16 aid workers from Muhajariya in South Darfur, Sudan following an intense attack on the town.

Vanessa van Schoor worked for 13 months as Head of Mission for Doctors Without Borders'/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) project in Darfur, overseeing security, solving staff and supply issues, and balancing medical work with communication of the injustices witnessed by MSF teams. Here she talks about the risks that humanitarian aid workers face in Darfur and why the intense effort to help must continue.

Over the past two months in southern Darfur, villages have been burned, civilians shot, and water sources and food stocks destroyed, causing at least 50,000 civilians to flee their homes.

Dr. Rowan Gillies, International Council President of MSF, returned to the Darfur region of Sudan in October, more than two years after he worked there as a field doctor. He describes the current situation there and discusses the potential implications of humanitarian aid organizations calling for armed intervention in the region.

Khartoum, Sudan/New York, AUgust 3, 2006 – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) demands that the provision of medical care be allowed and respected in the conflict areas of Darfur, Sudan. Many MSF activities are currently suspended in Darfur, leaving thousands of patients untreated everyday.

Forty-six people suffered violent injuries, including multiple gun-shot wounds, in an attack on the town of Labado in Sudan's South Darfur state.

Since late January, people have been streaming from Chad into Sudan's western region of Darfur, which is still gripped by violence and instability. More than 7,000 people fleeing violence and looting in Chad have taken refuge in a small village north of El Geneina, the capital of western Darfur. In this area neglected by aid organizations, MSF is providing them with assistance.

Since early 2003, the people of Darfur have endured a vicious campaign of violence, which has forced almost 2 million people to flee from their destroyed villages in search of safety. Rape against women, children, and men has sadly been a constant factor in this violence throughout this campaign of terror. More tragically, it continues to this day even long after people have fled from their villages. The stories of rape survivors give a horrific illustration of the daily reality of people in Darfur and especially of women and young girls, the primary victims of this form of violence. It has to stop.

Amsterdam, 7 March 2005 - Women and girls in war-ravaged Darfur are continuing to suffer a high incidence of rape and sexual violence, according to a report issued today by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Stories of rape survivors told to MSF are a horrific illustration of the daily reality of the ongoing violence that has displaced almost two million people in Darfur.

Abeche, Chad, 28 January 2005 - The international medical humanitarian aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is launching a meningitis vaccination campaign in eastern Chad, following a recent outbreak among refugees from Sudan's Darfur region. The campaign is aimed at protecting thousands of people in the area from the highly infectious disease, which is particularly threatening in the overcrowded camps.

MSF nurse Rakel Ludviksen and her colleague Jean Pierre Amigo spent November in the Jebel Si mountains, an extremely remote region of North Darfur, Sudan.

Amsterdam, December 22, 2004 – International medical relief organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is shocked by the murder of one of its Sudanese aid workers in South Darfur. According to reliable reports the aid worker was killed last Friday, December 17, during an attack led by government troops on Labado in South Darfur. The man was shot dead in front of the MSF warehouse in Labado town while off duty. “We are not able to verify the death of our staff, because it is not yet secure to send a team. Other national staff members that were present in the town are still missing. MSF employs 38 national staff in Labado of whom 29 are still unaccounted for today,” says MSF emergency coordinator Ton Koene.

Khartoum, December 1, 2004 - Two thousand civilians were yesterday forced to flee the village of Saraf Ayat in North Darfur, following the latest in a series of attacks in the region. Many of those caught up in yesterday's attack had already been forcibly displaced from their original home villages several days previously and were seeking refuge in Saraf Ayat at the time. A Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) team was providing medical care to people sheltering in school buildings when the attack occurred at around 2 pm yesterday afternoon.

By December 2004, 197 international volunteers and 2,582 national staff for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were providing emergency assistance in 27 locations in Darfur in areas with more than 600,000 displaced people.

An MSF team working in the Jebel Marra region of Darfur, Sudan, is back in the town of Golo implementing medical activities.

There is a war in the West of Sudan, with two rebel movements (the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)) having launched an insurgency against the rule of Khartoum.

Matthias Hrubey, MD, is a general practitioner who runs the MSF primary health clinic in Kass, a town whose population has swelled to an estimated 77,000 with the influx of approximately 48,000 people displaced by violence in the region.

New York, September 27, 2004 - Epidemiological surveys newly completed by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in South Darfur, Sudan, reveal that the overall level and quality of aid remains insufficient. In Kalma camp near Nyala, where an estimated 66,000 people fleeing violence have sought shelter and where MSF is treating 3,900 malnourished children, the survey found malnutrition and mortality rates well above emergency levels. MSF warns that without increased mobilization of aid to South Darfur, the health and nutritional situations in the region could deteriorate further.

While working in their clinics and feeding centers in Sudan's western Darfur region, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) volunteers regularly come across women and girls who have been raped or sexually assaulted.

After providing emergency assistance to displaced people in Darfur for several months, medical teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have seen its significant effect on people living in the camps, particularly in West Darfur.

Today in Darfur, 206 international volunteers and thousands of national staff for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are providing emergency assistance in 26 locations where 700,000 displaced people have sought refuge.

The province of North Darfur, Sudan, is being affected by increasing violence and tension since late August. The immediate consequence has been the arrival of 2,000 displaced people to Zam Zam camp, south of El Fasher, over the last few days.

Twice a week, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) volunteers travel to Deleig, a small village in the western part of the Darfur region of Sudan. As of late-July some 20,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) live there.

MSF has been present in Darfur since September 2003, and launched activities in December 2003. Currently, more than 160 international volunteers and 2,000 Sudanese provide assistance to more than 550,000 displaced people in 24 locations in West, South, and North Darfur.

London/New York, July 26, 2004 - Despite the increased political and media attention being given to the crisis in Darfur, Western Sudan, the international medical relief agency, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), says that the desperate condition of the people there is not improving.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is now working with an international staff of 125 in 17 separate locations across the Darfur region.

International pharmaceutical industries and governments are failing to develop and produce AIDS medicines and diagnostic tools suited to children, claimed Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières(MSF) today at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok.

After surviving a severe campaign of massive repression, civilians throughout Darfur now face an emergency health crisis. In addition to treating malnutrition, Dr. Greg Elder, head of mission for MSF in Sudan explained MSF's medical response to infectious diseases and sexual violence.

One hundred Sudanese dinars (30 cents) by foot, 200 by donkey: this is how much pro-government militias demand from those who forage for wood or grass beyond the periphery of Mornay camp, West Darfur.

MSF has been working in Darfur since December 2003. Today, nearly 100 international volunteers and 2,000 Sudanese staff provide medical and nutritional care in areas with more than 400,000 displaced people.

Between 20 and 30 thousand displaced people are crammed into thousands of rickety huts made from whatever scraps people could find: sticks, leaves, bits and pieces of cardboard, strips of cloth.

Khartoum, June 21, 2004 - After surviving massacres carried out by pro-government militias on their villages, displaced civilians in Darfur, Sudan continue to endure violent attacks and rapes around the areas in which they have gathered and face a devastating shortage of assistance, according to the international humanitarian medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Relief operations throughout the region fall far short of the massive needs, and as currently designed will not succeed in preventing an entirely man-made famine from wiping out tens of thousands of lives throughout the region.

New York, May 20, 2004 - The threat of famine looms in the Darfur region of western Sudan, according to the international medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). A recent nutritional survey shows dangerously high levels of malnutrition and mortality and a rapidly deteriorating food security situation. With already high levels of excess deaths and malnutrition, the whole population is teetering on the verge of mass starvation.

New York, April 28, 2004 - Because of the lack of appropriate, urgently needed aid, the health of displaced people in Sudan's Darfur region - particularly children - is radically worsening, according to the international medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

A French nurse and a Canadian logistician, volunteers with MSF, have just returned from nearly two months as a two-person team in the town of Mornay, located in the Darfur region of Sudan.

New York, March 10, 2004 - The international medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has found alarming nutritional needs in the war-affected town of Garsilla, in the Darfur region of western Sudan. In the course of vaccinating more than 4,900 children against measles, MSF identified 111 severely malnourished and 387 moderately malnourished children, and will now open a therapeutic feeding center (TFC) to care for them.

New York, February 26, 2004 - Every assessment conducted by teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) discovers newly displaced people living in extremely precarious conditions. Nearly 17,000 people have gathered recently in Krenik and Sisi, northwest of Mornay in Sudan's Darfur region. They have no access to drinking water and there is not enough food or medical assistance for them to survive. MSF has also counted 44 fresh graves - 17 for young children, which indicates a very high mortality rate.

New York, February 16, 2004 - Displaced people in the Darfur region of western Sudan are in extreme danger, and the massive emergency aid needed to ensure their survival is lacking.