NGO expulsions leave significant healthcare gaps in Darfur

The expulsion of 13 international NGOs (INGOs) operating in the western Sudan region of Darfur has left gaps in health coverage, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO) as 12 of them provided health and nutrition services to about 1.1 million people.



Through mobile clinics, hospitals and primary healthcare (PHC) facilities, the organisations had been providing essential services ranging from referrals for complicated and life-threatening cases to surveillance of epidemics, states the WHO March-April health bulletin.



In North Darfur, reproductive healthcare services have been interrupted after the closure of a PHC facility; the activities of other health facilities, serving at least 200,000 people, have also been curtailed.



In West Darfur, only 63 of 145 medical staff are providing services at 18 health facilities.



In South Darfur, one rural hospital in Muhajariya and some other health facilities are closed. Five of six therapeutic feeding centres are also shut.



In response, a joint UN and Sudan Government Action Plan for Darfur has recommended among other measures the redeployment of trained and qualified staff accepted by the community, supervision of clinics and provision of medical supplies to clinics, as well as the immunisation of children younger than five.



However, accessing children for routine immunisation programmes in hard-to-reach or insecure areas remains a challenge in Darfur. Meanwhile, vaccination against meningitis is ongoing in areas such as Kalma, Bilel and Al Salaam. Already this year, some 180 suspected cases of meningitis have been reported in the three Darfur states.



The expulsions affected at least 6,500 staff, or 40 percent of the humanitarian workforce in Darfur. The INGOs were expelled on 4 March, soon after the International Criminal Court indicted President Omar Al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the western region of Darfur.



The conflict in Darfur has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and displaced about half a million people since 2003.



One of the expelled INGOs, Oxfam GB, on 15 April appealed against its expulsion, warning that the humanitarian situation in Darfur had deteriorated.



The effects of the expulsions have been felt beyond Darfur in eastern Sudan and the so-called Three Areas bordering on Southern Sudan, Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile. Replacing lost expertise in Darfur will be very difficult, according to the UN. 



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