Global Courant
Nearly 30,000 refugees and returnees in the Sila region of eastern Chad are receiving limited and slow humanitarian aid. Lack of shelter, water and insufficient food has forced many refugees to turn to other refugee families or Chadian hosts for support.
In response, our teams launched an emergency project in collaboration with health authorities in the Sila region, near the border between Chad and Sudan. Through mobile clinics reaching Sudanese refugees, Chadian returnees and host communities, our teams provide medical and preventive care in the refugee camps of Andressa and Mogororo.
Services include screening and treatment of acute childhood malnutrition, sexual and reproductive health care, and referrals to the MSF-supported Deguessa Health Center or Koukou Hospital for specialized health care.
In the first three weeks alone, medical teams treated 1,460 patients, the majority of whom are children suffering from malnutrition, respiratory infections, acute watery diarrhea and malaria – all related to their precarious living conditions. A total of 333 pregnant women also received pre- and post-natal care.
While running mobile clinics in recent weeks, our teams in Sila have also heard disturbing stories from refugees who have fled the Sudanese town of Foro Baranga and surrounding villages, south of West Darfur. Most of them arrived on foot.
Survivors describe their experiences in shock after being subjected to extreme violence, including reported incidents of sexual and gender-based violence, torture, kidnapping, forced recruitment, looting, blackmail and property destruction. Those fleeing the conflict in Sudan also faced threats, while others had to pay to enter Chad.
Our teams have also cared for more than 70 injured Sudanese at our health center in the Adre region of Ouaddai. Most of the wounded arrived with serious gunshot wounds from the clashes in West Darfur. Many of them were left behind, unable to travel to Chad or receive medical treatment.
As Chad – a resource-poor country – suffers the consequences of the conflict in Sudan, the country’s quiet humanitarian crisis continues to deepen. Chadians living in border regions are no longer able to seek health care during the disruptive rainy season, nor access markets in Sudan for sustenance. This has caused the prices of food and raw materials to soar in an area with pre-existing high levels of malnutrition and where access to health care was already very limited for the host community.
In addition, people in Chad continue to be exposed to multiple shocks caused by extreme weather changes, armed conflict, and recurrent outbreaks of preventable and treatable diseases. These latest events will only increase their vulnerability and that of refugees and returnees from Chad.
“We are dealing with a crisis on top of a crisis. People trickle in as the conflict in Sudan intensifies, and more are expected to cross into Chad as fighting continues unabated,” says van der Schoot.
“In an already neglected and underfunded context like Chad, continued arrivals from Sudan strain the country’s already limited and overstretched resources and could exacerbate the existing humanitarian needs of both Sudanese refugees and the host community.
“An urgent scale-up of humanitarian programming and funding for refugees from Sudan is needed, but the needs of the host community and other refugees in eastern Chad must be given equal priority in this humanitarian response,” she says.
