Cholera has claimed at least 40 lives in Sudan’s Darfur region over the past week, as the country faces its worst outbreak in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported on Thursday.
At a cholera isolation tent in a displacement camp, an AFP journalist saw women and a young girl receiving intravenous fluids, while exhausted patients lay weakly on camp beds.
The European Union (EU), citing the sharp rise in cholera cases, which worsen the effects of malnutrition, urged all parties to “urgently” grant international aid agencies access to affected areas.
MSF said Darfur, already devastated by more than two years of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), had suffered the worst of the year-long outbreak.
“In the Darfur region alone, our teams treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths last week,” the NGO stated. In the year to 11 August, Sudan recorded 99,700 suspected cholera cases and 2,470 related deaths.
Cholera, an acute intestinal infection spread through contaminated food and water, can kill within hours if untreated. While it is preventable and treatable with oral rehydration or antibiotics for severe cases, the war has crippled access to clean water and healthcare.
Mass civilian displacement has worsened the crisis, with many forced to drink unsafe water and abandon basic hygiene. MSF described conditions in Tawila, North Darfur, as dire: 380,000 people have fled there to escape fighting around El-Fasher, surviving on an average of just three litres of water per day—less than half the emergency minimum standard.
“We mix lemon in the water when we have it and drink it as medicine,” said Mona Ibrahim, a displaced resident of Tawila camp. “We don’t have toilets; children relieve themselves in the open.”
The World Health Organisation says Sudan recorded the highest cholera death toll globally between January 2023 and July 2025, with a mortality rate of 2.1 percent—more than double the global average.
Contaminated water remains a major problem. “Just two weeks ago, a body was found in a well inside one of the camps. It was removed, but within two days, people were forced to drink from that same water again,” said Sylvain Penicaud, MSF’s project coordinator in Tawila.
Heavy rains have worsened the crisis by polluting water sources and damaging sewage systems, while civilians fleeing the conflict have spread the disease into neighbouring Chad and South Sudan.
MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, Tuna Turkmen, described the situation as “beyond urgent” and warned: “Survivors of war must not be left to die from a preventable disease.”