As violence and fighting rages on in Sudan and forces people to flee their homes, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has treated more than 70 wounded people—including a 3-year-old child—at a hospital in Adré in the eastern Ouaddaï province of Chad. Most of the injuries that MSF and local health authorities have treated at this facility are gunshot wounds inflicted in clashes and attacks in Masterei, a Sudanese border town south of West Darfur’s capital, El Geneina. Approximately 100,000 people have fled to Chad since the fighting started in Sudan in April.
"The wounded first arrived in dribs and drabs from mid-May onwards, then around fifty people in need of medical care poured in over the last few days," said Christophe Garnier, MSF’s emergency coordinator. "Most of them have sustained bullet wounds in clashes and attacks south of El Geneina in Masterei—a border town with a population of around 80,000—including many displaced people from surrounding villages.”
The wounded arrived in the Chadian town of Goungour, which is approximately six miles from Masterei, and were then referred by ministry of health and MSF teams to the hospital in Adré. Those who made it to Chad said that many people who were in critical condition in Masterei were left behind, unable to travel to Chad or access medical care in West Darfur amid the violence there.
"Refugees from West Darfur are reporting very disturbing scenes of violence, with armed men shooting at people trying to flee on foot, villages being looted, and the wounded dying,” Garnier said. “The hospitals on the ground are short of staff, equipment, and electricity, which is affecting their ability to function—if they have not already been put out of action by the destruction and looting.”
