Cholera Outbreak Claims 40 Lives in Sudan Within a Week – MSF

At least 40 people have died from cholera in Sudan’s Darfur region over the past week as the country battles its worst outbreak in years, according to medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

In an isolation tent at a Sudanese displacement camp, women and a young girl were seen receiving intravenous fluids, while exhausted and weak patients lay on camp beds.

The European Union (EU), citing rising cholera cases which “exacerbate the worst effects of malnutrition,” has called on all parties to “urgently” allow in international aid.

MSF said the vast western region of Darfur — a major battleground for more than two years between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — has been hardest hit by the year-old outbreak.

“On top of an all-out war, people in Sudan are now experiencing the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years. In the Darfur region alone, MSF teams treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths in the past week,” the organisation said in a statement.

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection spread through food and water contaminated with bacteria, often from faeces. It causes severe diarrhoea, vomiting, and muscle cramps, and can kill within hours if untreated. While it can be treated with oral rehydration solutions and antibiotics for severe cases, the global spread of cholera has increased since 2021.

MSF said mass displacement caused by the conflict has worsened the outbreak by depriving people of access to clean water for essential hygiene. The delivery of humanitarian aid, it warned, has become almost impossible.

“This cannot continue. Civilians must be protected, and humanitarian access must be granted,” the EU said in a joint statement with Britain, Canada, Japan, and others.

NO OTHER CHOICE

MSF said the situation is most severe in Tawila, North Darfur, where 380,000 people have fled ongoing fighting around the city of El-Fasher. “In Tawila, people survive with an average of just three litres of water per day, which is less than half the emergency minimum threshold of 7.5 litres needed per person per day for drinking, cooking, and hygiene,” it said.

At a cholera isolation centre in Tawila, patients described desperate coping methods. “We mix lemon in the water when we have it and drink it as medicine,” said Mona Ibrahim, who has been living for two months in a hastily erected camp. “We have no other choice. We don’t have toilets — the children relieve themselves in the open,” she added.

The World Health Organisation reports that between January 2023 and July 2025, Sudan recorded the highest number of cholera deaths in the world. The country’s mortality rate from cholera stands at 2.1 percent — more than 2.5 times the global average.

CONTAMINATED WATER

Since Sudan’s regular army recaptured the capital, Khartoum, in March, fighting has intensified in Darfur, with the RSF attempting to seize El-Fasher. The city is the last major urban centre in the region under army control, and UN agencies have described dire conditions for civilians trapped inside.

“In displacement and refugee camps, families often have no choice but to drink from contaminated sources and many contract cholera,” said Sylvain Penicaud, MSF project coordinator in Tawila. “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,” he added.

Heavy rains are worsening the crisis by contaminating water sources and damaging sewage systems, MSF said. The movement of civilians fleeing violence is also spreading the disease into neighbouring Chad and South Sudan.

MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, Tuna Turkmen, described the situation as “beyond urgent.”

“The outbreak is spreading well beyond displacement camps now, into multiple localities across Darfur states and beyond. Survivors of war must not be left to die from a preventable disease,” he said.