Nairobi, May 27, (dpa/GNA) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that a humanitarian crisis of “catastrophic proportions” is occurring in Sudan, with deadly diseases spreading unchecked after over two years of civil war.
Millions of people have fled the fighting between the government army SAF and the RSF militia and are living in cramped refugee camps.
The latest WHO report on the health situation in the civil war-torn country said that since the cholera epidemic began there last August, around 60,000 cases had been recorded up to and including April, with 1,640 deaths.
The infection is often spread through contaminated water. Now in its third year, the civil war is making it difficult to contain the epidemic.
Hygienic conditions there are often poor, and access to clean drinking water is limited. According to the WHO report, this is leading to the rapid spread of infectious diseases.
In addition, many hospitals in Sudan have been destroyed in the fighting or looted by the parties to the conflict.
The WHO says there has been a sharp increase in cases of dengue fever.
Disease is also spreading in refugee camps in countries that have taken in Sudanese refugees.
There are reports from Chad of malaria, acute respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases.
Many of the arrivals in the refugee camps, who fled to Chad from the Darfur region of Sudan, are malnourished, weakened and particularly susceptible to disease.
Malaria and diarrhoeal diseases are also rampant in South Sudan, where the border town of Renk is also experiencing a cholera epidemic and where it is increasingly difficult to accommodate refugees.
GNA
PDC