• Over 40 fatalities reported due to cholera in Sudan's Darfur region.
• Mass displacement and conflict have worsened the public health crisis.
• Heavy rains are contaminating water supplies, leading to more infections.
• Doctors Without Borders urges immediate action to combat the outbreak.

At least 40 people have died in Sudan's Darfur region amid the country's worst cholera outbreak in years, according to trtglobal. The outbreak, which has been ongoing for a year, is attributed to the deteriorating conditions caused by over two years of conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), affecting access to clean water and sanitation.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported that in the isolated Darfur region, their teams treated over 2,300 cholera patients and witnessed 40 deaths within a week. Nationwide, about 99,700 suspected cholera cases and 2,470 deaths have been recorded since August 2023, highlighting a rising health crisis amidst ongoing violence, as stated by lemonde and Al Jazeera.

The cholera bacterium spreads through contaminated food and water, causing severe symptoms. In Tawila, North Darfur, which has seen a mass exodus of approximately 380,000 people due to conflict, MSF reported that residents have access to only about three liters of water per day, insufficient for basic hygiene needs, according to trtglobal and lemonde.

The situation has led to families in displacement camps resorting to drinking from contaminated water sources. Just two weeks prior, a body was discovered in a well in one such camp, and conditions continue to deteriorate, worsening the outbreak. MSF's Tuna Turkmen has characterized this crisis as "beyond urgent," emphasizing that the outbreak is spreading beyond displacement camps to other localities, thus heightening the risk of further infections across the region, as per information from lemonde and Al Jazeera.

Since the army took control of Khartoum in March, violence has escalated in Darfur with increasing concerns from UN agencies about the dire conditions facing civilians. Heavy rains have further contaminated water supplies and damaged sewage systems, exacerbating the cholera crisis. MSF warns that this disease is now crossing borders into neighboring Chad and South Sudan, highlighting the wider implications of this outbreak as reported by Al Jazeera.