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Activities 2009
Despite the expulsion of the some Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams by the Sudanese government in March 2009, three MSF sections continue working in Northern Darfur, in the western region of Darfur, Al-Gedaref State and the Red Sea State (RSS). They provide a range of services, including primary and secondary healthcare, as well as responding to emergencies as they arise. Security remains a pressing issue in Darfur, as banditry, sporadic clashes between different groups and kidnappings of aid workers continue to occur.
North Darfur
In Northern Darfur, MSF is working in four locations: Shangil Tobaya, Tawila, Dar Zaghawa and Kaguro. In spite of security difficulties, in Shangil Tobaya MSF’s hospital continues to provide primary and secondary healthcare, including paediatric, reproductive healthcare and counselling services. The hospital provides medical care for 52,000 people, among them internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in the Shangil Tobaya and Shadat Camps, along with residents of surrounding villages living up to 50 kilometres from the hospital.
The hospital in Shangil Tobaya provides paediatric healthcare to internally displaced persons and the local population
Photo by Asia Kambal/MSF
On average MSF provides between 3,000 and 4,000 medical consultations per month. In addition, four community health workers travel daily on donkeys to neighboring villages that do not have access to medical services. These teams provide nutritional screening, basic health and hygiene training, as well as follow-up for patients.
In late October and particularly in late December, MSF provided support to newly displaced people following violence in Sheiria Locality in South Darfur. Almost 3,000 families have been displaced from their original villages to Um Deressaya, Shangil Tobaya and Dar El-Salam. MSF has responded to their critical humanitarian needs through NFI distributions, provision of water, latrines, mobile clinics, psychosocial support and a vaccination campaign.
In Tawila, major improvements in security mean that MSF has been able to resume its work. The Ministry of Health (MoH) hospital in this part of Darfur serves 40,000 people who are living in the three IDP camps in Tawila: Rwanda, Dali and Argo, along with local residents. In October, MSF restarted its activities in Tawila by providing supplies of medicine and medical equipment to the MoH clinic in Rwanda camp. There has been a three-fold increase in the number of daily outpatient consultations to approximately 250–350 per day.
Services provided by MSF include primary and secondary healthcare, sexual and reproductive healthcare, a comprehensive nutrition programme, as well as psychosocial support. MSF also provides training, capacity-building, supervision of MoH personnel and MSF staff to support clinical activities, as well as the payment of incentives. MSF has started rehabilitating an old MoH clinic which was destroyed during the fighting. As soon as this work is completed medical services will be transferred to this facility. Until the security situation in Shangil Tobaya and Tawila improves, MSF will continue to run these projects with international staff, based in El-Fashir, visiting twice a week.
In January, MSF began supporting five health centres: Umm Baru, Umm Haraz, Jurageem, Muzbat and Furawiya, which are located in Dar Zaghawa, an area in Northwestern Darfur close to the Sudan-Chad border, an area which has been prone to conflict. MSF supports the five health centres with incentives, drug supply, ambulatory nutritional support, training and capacity-building. MSF will preposition emergency stocks to quickly support humanitarian needs in Dar Zaghawa.
When three MSF staff members were kidnapped in Serif Umra in March, MSF closed its projects in Serif Umra and Kebkabiya and evacuated all of the international staff and relocated Sudanese staff from its project in the Kaguro area of the Jebel Si. For a period of five months, local staff from Kaguro continued working in the MSF clinic and provided an average of 1,420 outpatient consultations every month. However, in August a team of international and relocated staff was able to return to Kaguro and resume activities.
Currently, MSF runs a rural hospital in Kaguro providing outpatient and inpatient departments, immunisation, ambulatory therapeutic feeding and a women’s health clinic. MSF also runs five health posts in the isolated mountain villages of Burgo, Bourey, Lugo, Useige and Bouley. MSF is the only provider of healthcare in Kaguro and has been working there since 2005. On average it provides 3,012 outpatient consultations per month
West Darfur
In October 2009, MSF closed its project in the towns of Golo and Killin, located in Jebel Marra where 27,700 people reside. MSF was supporting the local hospital in Golo, through the provision of primary and secondary health care, obstetric and nutritional care. In Killin, MSF contributed to the town’s hospital by providing primary health care, outpatient nutritional program, antenatal care (ANC) and post-natal care (PNC). The Ministry of Health (MoH) will take over MSF’s previous work.
Al-Gedaref
In January 2010, MSF opened in collaboration with the Sudanese Ministry of Health, a Kala-Azar treatment project in Tabarak Allah, a village in the Atbara region, in Al-Gedaref state where the disease is endemic. MSF and the MoH will work together to improve the diagnosis and treatment of Kala Azar in the area.
Red Sea State (RSS)
In Northeastern Sudan in the city of Port Sudan, the capital of the RSS, MSF continues to provide reproductive healthcare in Tagodom Hospital. Approximately 98 per cent of the women in Port Sudan have undergone some form of circumcision, resulting in a variety of serious medical and obstetrical complications. The MSF project in Tagodom Hospital has a “zero-tolerance” policy on any type of female circumcision for pregnant women. Thus, women who come to give birth in the hospital are de-infibulated before delivery and are not re-infibulated after the delivery. MSF community health workers also raise awareness about the harmful effects of female circumcision.
MSF has worked in Darfur since 2003.