El Geneina, January 14(Darfur 24) A recent retrospective mortality survey conducted by the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières MSF among Sudanese refugees currently residing in three refugee camps in Chad revealed a significant rise in the death rate in Sudan from the beginning of the conflict in April 2023 onwards.
The study conducted by the Medical Research and Epidemiology Center of Doctors Without Borders, among Sudanese refugees in Chad, documented the horrific scale of the wave of violence that swept the region last June, while atrocities continued in recent months in the El Geneina region, the capital of West Darfur. in Sudan.
The study was conducted among Sudanese currently living in three refugee camps, where they were asked about people in their families who died during 2023, and how they died. While the results indicate a significant rise in deaths from the beginning of the conflict in Sudan in April 2023 onwards in the three refugee camps in which the study was conducted, refugees residing in Orange camp, mainly from El Geneina, were the most affected.
The study revealed that the death rate rose twenty-fold from April onwards, reaching 2.25 deaths per 10,000 people per day, peaking in June. 83 percent of those killed were men, while violence, especially with firearms, was the cause of death in 82 percent of case.
MSF indicated that most of the deaths occurred in El Geneina, while a quarter of them occurred while heading to Chad. Approximately one in every twenty men between the ages of 15 and 44 were reported missing during this period.
In this regard, Claire Nicolet, head of emergency programs at MSF in Chad, says: “The survey results are consistent with the testimonies of about 1,500 wounded Sudanese who have been treated by our teams in cooperation with the Chadian health authorities in the surgical unit at Adré Hospital since last June. “
“The largest influx of wounded we have seen in Adre, 858 war wounded received between June 15 and 17, is consistent with the peak mortality rate observed in the survey.”
She added, “Many of the wounded reported that Arab militia members were targeting them because of their Masalit ethnic affiliation and shooting them in El Geneina. “This violence then continued in villages and at checkpoints all the way into Chad, with Masalit men systematically targeted,” they told us.
The number of refugees who have fled West Darfur over the past six months paint a picture of an unbearable spiral of violence, characterized by looting, burning of homes, beatings, sexual violence and massacres. The ethnic dimension of the violence, rooted in political, economic and land rivalry between communities in the territory, has taken a particularly sharp turn in the capital El Geneina, which is now almost devoid of the Masalit community that used to live there.
In this context, H., a twenty-six-year-old refugee who fled to Adre from El Geneina, says: “They told us that this is not our country and gave us two options: leave immediately for Chad or be killed. They took some men and I saw them shooting them in the streets, with no one to bury the bodies. On the way to Chad, we were stopped at several checkpoints. They were asking us which tribe we were from.
Another patient treated by MSF in Adrei adds that they were targeting the Masalit.
One of the most recent violence occurred in November in Erdemta, to the northeast of El Geneina. Hundreds of people were reportedly killed when militias took control of the area, which was hosting a large camp for displaced people and a Sudanese Armed Forces garrison. Nicolet adds, “333 wounded, most of them from Erdemta, were injured by gunshots and were treated in Adré by medical teams affiliated with Médecins Sans Frontières and the Chadian Ministry of Health during the month of November.”
A study was conducted in August and September by MSF Epicenter teams in Temtouma, Arkom and Orang camps, which were housing 6,000, 44,000 and 25,000 people respectively at the time. A representative sample of 3,093 people (heads of household) were asked about the number and causes of deaths in their household in 2023, before and after the start of the conflict. This makes it possible to determine and compare the crude mortality rate over the two periods.
The conflict in Sudan has led to a major humanitarian crisis in eastern Chad, where nearly half a million people have taken refuge, alongside local communities already in need and thousands of other Sudanese refugees who have been in the country for two decades. Significant financial, logistical and human resources are still needed to scale up the humanitarian response, particularly emergency food assistance, in Adre and surrounding camps.