Water and Sanitation

Chad: Water crisis intensifies amid soaring temperatures and shrinking funds

by

Faced with deepening gaps in international aid and rising needs, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is increasingly stepping in to provide life-saving water and sanitation services for hundreds of thousands of refugees and local residents across eastern Chad. With particularly high temperatures in recent months, the daily search for clean water has become a relentless struggle … Read more

South Sudan: Urgent action needed to address growing cholera outbreak

by

There is an imminent need to improve sanitation and hygiene for many living in overcrowded conditions to prevent the further spread of disease. Juba, 13 November 2024: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has set up a 20-bed cholera treatment unit (CTU) at the Renk Civil Hospital in South Sudan, in response to a cholera outbreak declared … Read more

Bangladesh: Providing medical and sanitation support following devastating floods

by

MSF launched the emergency project on 5th September 2024 in response to the catastrophic flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands of people, disrupting essential services and posing severe health risks to vulnerable populations. In mid-September, the floodwaters had barely subsided in Noakhali, in southern Bangladesh, when the devastating consequences began to unfold. Among the many … Read more

Clean water: a scarce resource for displaced people around Goma

by

Access to clean water is a major challenge for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have been surviving for months in makeshift camps located on the outskirts of Goma. Due to the contagion of waterborne diseases such as cholera, extremely poor hygienic conditions, and higher risk of exposure to violence when getting supplies … Read more

Bringing the water system back to life in Tigray, Ethiopia

by

MSF provides clean water to Aby Aday IDP camp in Sheraro, Tigray. MSF re-started activities in Tigray in November 2022. Water and sanitation activities are a key priority to prevent the spreading of water borne diseases. In Sheraro, MSF team are trucking up to 1.4 million litres of water to serve six IDP camps every … Read more

Sudan: Fleeing conflict, hundreds of thousands face hardship and disease in overcrowded camps in White Nile State

by

26 July, 2023 – More than 140,000 people, mostly South Sudanese women and children fleeing from Khartoum, have newly arrived in White Nile state since conflict broke out in Sudan and are now facing huge unmet needs for food, shelter, healthcare and water and sanitation in 10 camps that host around 387,000 people, according to … Read more

Cyclone Mocha: aid efforts severely hampered by new restrictions

by

About 85 per cent of my camp is in ruins after Cyclone Mocha wreaked havoc here. All hut-like houses are destroyed. People who live in houses like these are in dire need of emergency aid since they have no place to stay. Daw Nu MSF Community Health Worker in Sittwe Daw Saw Nu’s house was … Read more

Why is cholera killing hundreds across the Horn of Africa when it is so preventable?

by

Cholera outbreaks are occurring with increasing frequency, and lasting for longer, across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. Tetiana Gaviuk, communications manager of the international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) questions in this piece why the death toll from this preventable disease is rising. Cholera is an acute bacterial infection caused by ingesting food … Read more

Bangladesh: MSF calls for an urgent and comprehensive response to the scabies outbreak in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps

by

Cox’s Bazar, 12 July, Wednesday – An outbreak of scabies, the skin disease, is affecting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, demanding an urgent response, says international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). To bring the outbreak under control, the response needs to be fast … Read more

Water and sanitation in northwest Syria: the invisible health threats to displaced people

by

Jindires, a once-magnificent city located in northwest Syria, near the Turkish border, has been reduced to rubble, bearing the scars of both a relentless war and a recent earthquake. In northwest Syria, nine out of 10 people who were newly displaced by the earthquakes into camps, had been displaced by the war at least once … Read more