Feb 2024-Aug 2025

Healthcare and safe water for refugees in eastern Chad

2014-2025

Médecins sans Frontières

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian association. For more than 50 years, it has provided medical assistance to people whose lives or health are in danger, mainly as a result of armed conflicts, epidemics or natural disasters. We’ve funded its work regularly since 2014 to provide lifesaving care across Africa, Asia and - during the COVID-19 crisis – Europe.

www.msf.org

CHALLENGE

Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, more than 10 million people have been displaced in the country and fled abroad in search of safety. More than 830 000 have crossed into Chad (UN data, August 2024), mostly settling in the Ouaddaï region, where they are struggling to survive in refugee camps where basic services are missing, in precarious conditions. At the same time, more people are crossing the Sudanese border every day, putting an immense pressure on already stretched health services and water and food resources.

ACTION

MSF teams are working in Adré hospital, the only functioning permanent medical facility in the region. Here they provide medical care, mostly for refugees who were wounded fleeing Sudan, and support the maternity, paediatric and surgical wards, as well as the therapeutic feeding centre.

MSF has also established two health clinics in Adré’s informal transit camp. These clinics provide general healthcare, routine vaccinations, malnutrition treatment and mental and reproductive health services for around 207,000 people (UN data, August 2024).

Other MSF teams have set up a 88-bed inflatable hospital in Aboutengué refugee camp – formerly Ourang camp – which is around 25 kilometres west of Adré and currently hosts around 44,500 displaced persons. This facility, which includes two operating theatres and a maternity ward, is providing essential health services to around 12,500 people living in the camp and neighbouring villages. In the first 6 months of 2024, MSF teams provided 1,500 to 2,000 consultations per week in addition to 50 emergency consultations, mostly for severe malnutrition and malaria

In addition to these hospital facilities, MSF teams are improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in both camps, ensuring minimum service levels are provided for the increasing number of arrivals.