Darfur displaced ‘under pressure’ from health issues, plans to dismantle camps

Displaced people in camps in Darfur feel they are facing pressure to leave the camps while health issues continue to emerge. The government is preparing plans to dismantle the camps.

Yesterday, community elders from various camps reported to Radio Dabanga that the camps witness the spread of diabetes, blood pressure issues and mental illnesses among camp residents. They said these are caused “by the horrors of war, the living conditions and the economic crisis”.

One of the sheikhs of camp Murnei, in West Darfur, told this station that seventeen people had a leg amputated in the camp because of diabetes-related complications. About 20 people reportedly suffer from mental illness.

He called on the humanitarian authorities and organisations to provide health care and the necessary medical and psychological support, especially to the patients.

Continued announcements of the Sudanese government and the recent declaration of the US military attaché in Khartoum about the improved security situation in the region are signs of a campaign to increase the numbers of voluntary returnees from the camps to their areas of origin. While the majority of displaced long to return, reports of militiamen with their families occupying the abandoned villages and farms continue to emerge.

Poor hospitals

Meanwhile people in Zalingei, Central Darfur, are witnessing an increase in medicine prices, poor medical services, poor hospital environment, and a lack of life-saving medicines in the emergency sections.

Yesterday one of the residents told Radio Dabanga that no maintenance is done in the city's hospital, and dirty wards, toilets, and broken fans cause mosquitoes to breed.

“Patients in the hospital suffer from their disease, but also the lack of medicine and high prices in the pharmacies.”

He called on the state authorities to expedite the sanitation of the hospital environment, maintenance of wards, improvement of hygiene standards and also to provide more medicine to the state.