Sudan Weekly News (56): From Ad-Damazin and Al-Gadarif

Local sources in Ad-Damazin, in the Blue Nile region, report a sweeping spread of dengue fever and malaria among residents, especially the displaced, whose health conditions are critical as the rainy season sets in.

 Displaced people and residents told Atar that infections multiply daily, while medicines are all but nonexistent, and where found, fetch prices beyond people’s reach.

Faiz Gism Al-Sayed, displaced from Gaisan locality to the Karama 3 camp in Ad-Damazin, told Atar that rain-borne diseases are surfacing at a pace he called alarming, describing the shelters’ sanitary environment as collapsed.

“The tents have frayed until they no longer keep out the wind or the rain. There is no health effort whatsoever to contain the epidemics spreading among the displaced,” he said, adding:

“The malaria-bearing mosquitoes stab at our bodies by night, and the dengue carriers take their share of us by day.”

Faiz disclosed a steep surge in medicine prices:

“When we first arrived, medicine came free, sometimes at reduced prices. That has stopped. Malaria treatment now costs more than 50,000 SDG, while treating dengue exceeds 120,000.”

The malaria protocol comprises three injections and tablets. The injections cost 25,000 SDG officially but sell for 35,000, the tablets 10,000 and Panadol 5,000.

A dengue patient needs about 10 Panadol drips at 7,000 to 9,000 SDG each, plus other medicines such as Panadol and fever reducers.

Local initiatives have begun distributing medicines and mosquito nets to answer the towering demands of confronting the epidemics. Yet a member of one initiative now supporting the displaced, who preferred to withhold his name for security reasons, told Atar:

“We gather modest donations through social media, targeting traders and salaried workers for support. Even so, the authorities order us to hand over what we collect so they purchase the relief supplies themselves and distribute them through the Humanitarian Aid Commission.”

The authorities also require them to stay invisible behind their own work, a condition he says they accept, since their contributions, however small, may ease the burdens on people’s shoulders.

Last April, security authorities in the Blue Nile region halted the work of the emergency response rooms that had covered urgent needs and the challenges facing residents and the displaced, leaving a gaping void in humanitarian coverage.

A member of the Ad-Damazin emergency room said residents and the displaced endure tragic conditions, revealing a survey the room conducted secretly and indirectly, given its ban from volunteer work: 350 families in two displacement camps need urgent medical intervention, and the room’s health section found malaria infection among the camps’ displaced exceeds 63 per cent, with dengue at 47 per cent.

“We have appealed to international organizations and media institutions to launch a response campaign. We can do nothing more. We are shackled by so many restrictions,” he said, adding with anguish:

“It is a wretched thing to watch problems take hold of your community and be unable to offer them anything, when, but for the conditions imposed on you, you could have given something, however small.”

Ad-Damazin holds 10 camps, named the Karama camps, sheltering some 150,000 displaced who fled the crush of fighting in Kurmuk, Gaisan and At-Tadamon localities, after armed confrontations escalated across the Kurmuk and Gaisan localities.

Ali Hajo Ali, the secretary-general of the Blue Nile Civil Society Initiative, told Atar the information reaching his initiative is “frightening,” citing figures from medical sources that daily visits for the two epidemics surpass 30 cases at some camp health centres, with one to two deaths recorded each day.

Hajo, condemning the absence of the health authorities charged with shielding citizens from disease, said:

“Dengue fever is ravaging citizens in Blue Nile, particularly the neighbourhoods of Ad-Damazin, while the health ministry and the authorities stand in shameful absence.”

Hajo demanded that health authorities move at once to mount comprehensive vector-control campaigns, provide medicines and medical supplies, support health facilities, and transparently announce the scale of infections and immediate response plans. He appealed to national and international health organizations to intervene urgently to rescue citizens and stem the crisis before it hardens into a sweeping health and humanitarian catastrophe.

Although trips have been arranged to return some of the displaced from Ad-Damazin to Kurmuk, which the Sudanese Armed Forces captured on July 8, large numbers of displaced keep streaming into Ad-Damazin and Wad Al-Mahi, fleeing military operations in Gaisan locality and piling further pressure onto the camps’ scarce services.

“We reached Ad-Damazin the week before last, worn down by the length of the journey and with our resistance so depleted, many of us came down with malaria and dengue,” Haroun Juma, displaced from Gaisan locality, told Atar

In Karama 3, a medical source told Atar of a wide dengue and malaria outbreak:

“We receive between 20 and 25 dengue and malaria cases in a single day.”

The source also revealed a crisis in intravenous fluids.

“We received promises from the regional health ministry to supply them. But the disease does not wait,” they said.