Caring
for victims
of war
The peace process
between northern
and southern
Sudan that has
been underway
since 2002 has
renewed hopes for
an end to Africa's
longest-running
civil war. The conflict
has cost almost
two million lives, mostly civilians who have
died from hunger and disease. Yet amid
talk of peace between the north and the
south, the westernmost region of Sudan,
Darfur, became the site of a growing catastrophe
in the past year.
The ceasefire between the Sudanese government
and the southern rebels of the
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has
held – with few exceptions – for two years.
The absence of fighting has greatly
improved MSF's ability to reach new areas
and has reduced the displacement of
groups of people fleeing violence.
For years, MSF has assisted people in both
northern and southern Sudan, providing
basic health care at hospitals or through
networks of clinics and health centers. Its
work has included treating people with
tuberculosis (TB), kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis)
and other diseases; providing
food; and treating the severely malnourished.
MSF also delivers clean drinking
water and provides sanitary facilities in
areas where displaced people have sought
shelter.
In 2003-4 the organization continued these
crucial, basic services and also assisted
people affected by measles, meningitis,
malaria and other infectious diseases. MSF
treats people with TB in the towns of
Akuem and Mapel in Bahr el Ghazal province,
Bentiu in Western Upper Nile province
and in Lankien in Eastern Upper Nile province.
During the last year, MSF treated
approximately 430 TB patients in Sudan.
Because the treatment takes from six to
eight months, curing people with TB
remains highly challenging. MSF's pioneering
experience in this field has paved the
way for other organizations to set up similar
TB programs elsewhere in the country.
In southern Sudan, sleeping sickness
(African trypanosomiasis) is endemic, and
unless outbreaks are brought under control,
epidemics can emerge rapidly. The
disease is fatal if left untreated. MSF is now
treating those with sleeping sickness
around the towns of Kajo Keji, Ibba and
Kotobi in Western Equatoria province. MSF
closed a sleeping sickness program in the
Western Equatoria town of Kirii after successfully
reducing the number of cases to
the region's normal level.
MSF also runs a special program to treat
people with kala azar, a parasitic disease
spread by the tiny sandfly that is fatal in 95
percent of untreated cases. Approximately
3,300 patients received treatment for the
disease through MSF projects in the towns
of Walgak, Wudier and Lankien in Upper
Nile province, in Umm el Kher in the eastern
state of Gadaref and in Bentiu in
Western Upper Nile province.
In May and June 2004, an outbreak of the
hemorrhagic Ebola virus occurred near
the town of Yambio, in Eastern Equatoria
province. MSF set up an isolation unit and
treated 28 patients, of whom 6 died.
MSF has worked in Sudan since 1979.
Darfur: Living in a nightmare
| " What you see there is widespread suffering, inadequate relief efforts
and continuing violence. Hardly anyone is getting the care civilians
should get in a conflict, and there are real pockets of disaster, where
people are at grave risk of dying in large numbers."
– Rowan Gillies, M.D., President of MSF's International Council, after returning from Darfur |
During the past year, brutal killings, rape and razed villages became
all too common occurrences for the people of Sudan's western region
of Darfur. Attacks carried out by government-backed militias known as
Janjaweed terrorized civilians and forced them to flee to what they
hoped would be safer locations. Yet after having survived massacres,
raids and looting, the displaced still face continuing violence and a
devastating shortage of assistance.
By mid-2004, more than one million people had been driven from their homes. An
additional 180,000 people had sought safety in Chad (see page 23). More than 200 international
MSF volunteers and 2,000 national staff members are working in an area where
approximately 700,000 people have sought refuge, helping those weakened by disease
and malnutrition. In July alone, the organization shipped and flew in more than 1,400
tons of supplies, valued at more than three million euros, to Sudan. The supplies included
large quantities of medical and logistical material as well as full containers of food.
Across Darfur, MSF is providing medical care in hospitals and clinics for those wounded in
the violence, victims of sexual violence and displaced living in camps who suffer from
malaria, respiratory infections and diarrhea – the latter the main cause of death, particularly
for young children and the elderly. Another important part of the organization's
activities centers on feeding malnourished children. MSF has organized "blanket feedings"
to distribute survival food rations to children under the age of five. MSF estimates that by
the end of 2004 it will have distributed more than 800,000 survival rations. Teams also
provide clean water and latrines to reduce the risk of cholera, dysentery and other diseases.
In late July, MSF was treating some 10,000 malnourished children in its feeding centers
and performing almost 12,000 medical consultations a week.
An MSF assessment carried out in late August found that people living in remote regions
of northern Darfur still lacked food and medical aid despite the increased mobilization of
international aid agencies in the region. Aside from addressing these needs, MSF will also
hold a massive measles vaccination campaign there, targeting 80,000 children between
the ages of six months and 15.
In addition to providing immediate relief, MSF has been speaking out on the precarious
situation of the displaced and the need for immediate action. Despite the efforts made
by MSF and others, many people remain exposed to hunger, disease and violence. The
people of Darfur need much more assistance than MSF can provide. The organization
continues to call on international aid agencies to increase significantly their delivery of
aid, especially in areas that remain cut off from help at present, in order to meet the
immense needs and avoid further deaths.
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