At least 40 people have died in Sudan’s Darfur region amid the country’s most severe cholera outbreak in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported on Thursday.
The outbreak, which began a year ago, has hit Darfur hardest a region already devastated by more than two years of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In the past week alone, MSF teams in Darfur treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths.
Nationwide, there have been 99,700 suspected cholera cases and 2,470 related deaths since August 2024. Cholera, a bacterial infection spread through contaminated food and water, can kill within hours if untreated. It is preventable and treatable with oral rehydration and, in severe cases, antibiotics.
MSF said mass displacement caused by the war has worsened the crisis, leaving many without access to safe water for drinking, cooking, and hygiene. In Tawila, North Darfur, where 380,000 people have fled fighting around El-Fasher, residents survive on just three litres of water daily less than half the emergency minimum standard.
Conditions are dire in displacement camps, where families are often forced to drink from contaminated sources. MSF recounted one instance where a body was found in a camp well and within two days, people were drinking from it again due to a lack of alternatives.
Heavy rains are further contaminating water sources and damaging sewage systems, while the movement of fleeing civilians is spreading the disease into neighbouring Chad and South Sudan.
MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, Tuna Turkmen, warned the situation is “beyond urgent,” saying the outbreak has now spread far beyond displacement camps to multiple localities across Darfur and beyond.
