UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Sudan update UNHCR - WHO

Run, but we will find you, Sudan fighters tell terrified civilians

Urgent help is needed to halt a deadly cholera outbreak that is sweeping across Sudan, UN agencies said on Friday, while warning that communities continue to be terrorized by parties to the conflict even as they flee violence.

“People told me multiple times that when they were fleeing from Zamzam [displacement camp], armed people would threaten them while they were in flight, saying sure, ‘Flee, go to that place, run here, run there, we will follow you, we will find you,” said Jocelyn Elizabeth Knight, a Protection Officer for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

Briefing journalists in Geneva, the Ms. Knight described speaking to one traumatized child in a shelter run by the agency, whose experience was mirrored across the wartorn nation.

“A tiny boy told me, ‘You know, during the day things are okay here, but I'm afraid to go to sleep at night in case the place where we're living is attacked again.’”

In addition to heavy fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries, civilians now face a fast-spreading and deadly cholera outbreak.

“Cholera has swept across Sudan with all the states reporting outbreaks,” said Dr Ilham Nour, Senior Emergency Officer with the UN World Health Organization (WHO), noting that since last July, nearly 100,000 cases have been reported.

Lives on the line

The highly contagious disease spreads rapidly in unsanitary conditions. As of early August, 264 cases and 12 deaths have been identified at Dougui refugee settlement in eastern Chad hosting Sudanese arrivals from Darfur.

Surrounding villages have also reported suspected cases, while others have emerged in Treguine settlement, one of many UNHCR camps in eastern Chad that host Sudanese refugees.

Help to contain the disease needs to come immediately, insisted UNHCR’s Dossou Patrice Ahouansou, Principal Situation Coordinator for Eastern Chad.

“We still have more than 230,000 refugees at the border in very difficult situation,” he said. “Without urgent action including enhancing access to medical treatment, to clean water, to sanitation, to hygiene and most important, relocation from the border, many more lives are on the line.”

As part of the response and to prevent new cases, the UN agency has suspended the relocation of refugees from border points.

Unexploded weapons alert

Meanwhile, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) confirmed fears that unexploded ordnance from ongoing battles are killing and maiming non-combatants who are unaware of the extent of the danger.

“The sad reality of this ongoing conflict is it is not happening in rural areas, it’s mainly happening in urban areas, in the areas which are highly populated,” said Mohammad Sediq Rashid, Chief of UNMAS Sudan.

Last week, six minefields were confirmed in Khartoum and three of them contained anti-personnel landmines - the first time this has been reported - he told journalists in Geneva.

“Contamination is on the roads, in homes, in schools and airstrips, medical facilities, humanitarian bases,” the UNMAS official continued. “This is a population [that] is largely unaware of the dangers that are waiting for them…this problem is only growing every day.”

ends

Sudan update UNHCR - WHO - UNMAS

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