‘Still no health relief for West Darfur poisoning victims’: Sheikh

The leaders of Murnei camp for the displaced in West Darfur complained on Tuesday that the victims of a mass food-poisoning incident “have not received proper medical care for the fifth day running”. As reported by Radio Dabanga on Sunday, sheiks said that 275 people were stricken with vomiting and acute diarrhoea after eating contaminated grain. Some of those were in “critical condition”. By Monday, reports reached our station that 13 have died, including three children and four women. Large numbers of livestock also perished. One of sheikhs of the camp told Radio Dabanga that people were forced to remove sick relatives from the camp’s health centre, as there was no treatment available there. He said that nobody has been arrested in connection with the incident yet, lamenting that people are “hesitant to communicate openly with the investigating authorities for fear of arrest and prosecution themselves”. While the stock of contaminated grain was immediately burned and buried by food security officers, the sheikh said that as a further precaution, leaders and officials are going through the camp to raise awareness among the displaced not to eat any grain they might have left, nor to feed it to their livestock. In an e-mail response to Radio Dabanga’s coverage of this news, the press office of the UN Information Centre in Khartoum stated that it “would like to categorically deny involvement of the United Nations in the alleged incident”. File photo: A grain and food store in Darfur Related: Tainted grain kills 13 in West Darfur camp (26 August 2013)275 displaced ‘poisoned by contaminated food’ in West Darfur camp (25 August 2013)