Over the past two years, the conflict in Sudan has worsened the humanitarian crisis, with over 11.7 million people displaced since April 2023. In collaboration with the NGO action medeor, 1.6 tonnes of essential medical supplies have been sent to Sudan.
Hunger in Sudan has reached catastrophic levels, with more than half of the population unable to access food daily. Approximately 25.6 million people suffer from hunger, of which 8.5 million are in the IPC phase of emergency. Drinking water and electricity are often absent due to damage to infrastructure and public facilities. Approximately 80% of medical facilities are not functioning or have been forced to close due to hostilities on the ground, which has left the population without access to care, further aggravating the already precarious health condition of most people, especially minors, who are most exposed to the risk of malnutrition or epidemics such as cholera.
There is a lack of medical personnel, such as doctors and nurses, a lack of medicines, without which it is impossible to deal with otherwise curable diseases and infections or to guarantee treatment for chronic illnesses. In emergencies like this, the job of a humanitarian organisation like INTERSOS is not only to intervene on the ground, as quickly as possible, but also to figure out how to overcome a series of practical obstacles linked to logistical and security problems that sometimes risk slow down the response to the urgent needs of the population.
Nearly two years have passed since the start of the internal conflict in Sudan between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which since April 2023 has made an already worrying humanitarian situation dramatic, forcing more than 11.7 million people to leave their homes and flee to other areas of the country or outside its borders.
The work of logistics in these cases is fundamental to reach remote and risky areas and thanks to the collaboration with action medeor – an NGO that deals with getting medicines to countries in an emergency – we have sent drugs and medical material such as painkillers, antibiotics, bandages or syringes, totaling 1.6 tonnes, to Sudan. All products are indispensable in medical facilities and hospitals every day. “With these medicines, we want to work in various medical facilities in the Darfur region, trying to bring health care to about 15,000 people”, says Andrea Dominici, Director of the Regional Office for Emergency.
The expedition started in Tönisvorst, a town in north-west Germany, by truck to Frankfurt airport, from there an airplane flight transported the cargo first to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then to N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. The journey from here continued overland, on a truck that travelled 800 km in an easterly direction to Adre, on the border with Sudan, and then on to Al Geneina, the capital of the Darfur region. INTERSOS, present in Darfur, will use these medicines to facilitate access to health for thousands of people affected by the conflict. Specifically, our humanitarian team is working on rehabilitating a health centre in Mangarsa and activating a mobile clinic that will move to the Foro Baranga area.